THE  AFTERMATH 
OF    SLAVERY 


THE   AFTERMATH 
OF   SLAVERY 

A   STUDY   OF 

THE  CONDITION  AND  ENVIRONMENT 
OF  THE  AMERICAN   NEGRO 

BY 
WILLIAM   A.  SINCLAIR,  A.M.,  M.D. 

WITH   AN    INTRODUCTION   BY 
THOMAS    WENTWORTH    HIGGINSON,    LL.D. 


BOSTON 

SMALL,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY 
MCMV 


Copyright,  1905,  by 
Small,  Maynard  <^  Company 

(Incorporated) 


All  rights  reserved 


Published  April,  1905 
Second  edition  July,  1905 


The  University  Press,  Cambridge,  U.  S.  A. 


TO  ALL  AMERICANS 
WHO  BELIEVE  THAT  THE  FLAG  SHALL  BE 

THE  SYMBOL  OF  LIBERTY  UNDER  LAW 

AND  OF  EQUAL  RIGHTS  BEFORE  THE  LAW 

FOR  ALL  AMERICANS 


500245 


CONTENTS 


Page 
A  Biographical  Note ix 

Introduction  (by  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson)      ...         xi 


I  The  Institution  of  Slavery  and  its  Abolition      .     .  3 

II  Reconstruction  and  the  Southern  "Black  Code"    .  37 

III  Southern  Opposition  to  Reconstruction      ....  74 

IV  The  War  on  Negro  Suffrage 104 

V  The  False  Alarm  of  Negro  Domination    .     .     .     .  153 

VI    The  Negro  in  Politics 183 

VII   The  Negro  and  the  Law 215 

VIII  The  Rise  and  Achievements  of  the  Colored  Race  259 

IX   The  National  Duty  to  the  Negro 291 

C 

X   Public  Opinion  Omnipotent 330 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE 

WILLIAM  A.  SINCLAIR,  the  author  of  this  book, 
was  born  in  slavery  at  Georgetown,  South  Carolina. 
When  about  four  years  of  age,  in  the  early  part  of 
the  Civil  War,  he  was  sold  with  his  mother,  from  his  home ; 
but  about  a  year  after  the  close  of  the  war,  after  many  trying 
experiences,  they  returned  to  his  native  place,  where  a  partial 
reuniting  of  the  family  was  effected.  William's  father  died 
shortly  after  this,  and  the  widowed  mother  became  responsible 
for  the  boy's  maintenance  and  education.  He  attended  the 
local  schools  and  prepared  himself  to  enter  upon  a  higher  course 
of  study  at  Clafiin  University,  Orangeburg,  South  Carolina. 
Thence  he  went  to  the  well-known  South  Carolina  College  at 
Columbia,  that  venerable  institution  of  learning,  which,  in  the 
days  of  slavery,  had  been  patronized  by  the  aristocracy  of  the 
state  including  Haynes,  Rhett,  McDuffee,  Bamwell,  and  Cal- 
houn,  and  which,  under  Republican  administration  of  the  state 
after  the  close  of  the  war,  had  been  thrown  open  to  colored  as 
well  as  white  students.  Colored  students  were  debarred  from 
this  college  in  1877,  and  Mr.  Sinclair  entered  Howard  Uni 
versity,  Washington,  D.  C.,  where  he  graduated  from  the 
college  and  tfieological  departments  and  where  he  later  received 
the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  The  next  step  in  his  educational 
development  was  post-graduate  study  at  Andover  Theological 
Seminary,  where  he  won  a  prize  for  a  dissertation  and  delivered 
an  address  at  the  commencement  exercises. 

For  six  years  he  devoted  himself  to  missionary  work,  under 
the  auspices  of  the  American  Missionary  Association,  at  Nash 
ville,  Tennessee,  and  here  he  improved  the  opportunity  to  study 
medicine  at  the  MeHarry  Medical  College  of  Central  Tennessee 
University  (now  W olden  University  of  Nashville),  where  he 
took  his  medical  degree,  being  also  the  salutatorian  of  his 
class. 

ix 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE 

During  his  college  vacations  Mr.  Sinclair  taught  school, 
and  he  has  Jilled,  with  credit  and  success,  the  positions  of 
principal  of  the  graded  school  at  Georgetown,  South  Car 
olina,  and  professor  of  natural  sciences  in  Livingstone  College, 
Salisbury,  North  Carolina ;  and  for  the  past  sixteen  years  he 
has  been  Jinancial  secretary  of  Howard  University,  Washing 
ton,  D.  C. 

Throughout  the  period  of  his  education  he  displayed  unusual 
powers  of  oratory,  and  in  his  labors  for  Howard  University  he 
has  been  heard  in  the  pulpit  and  on  the  platform  throughout 
the  United  States,  and  in  the  United  Kingdom  as  well.  In  this 
Jield  his  natural  abilities  and  his  evident  learning  have  every 
where  procured  him  distinctive  recognition  among  thinking 
people. 

Throughout  his  travels  Dr.  Sinclair  has  discussed  the  race 
question,  publicly  and  at  the  Jireside,  with  persons  of  every 
degree  and  station  in  life,  and  in  the  following  pages  he  gives 
to  a  wider  circle  than  he  can  reach  by  personal  discourse  the 
information  that  has  been  required  of  him  concerning  the  con 
dition  and  environment  of  the  American  negro. 


INTRODUCTION 

NO  W  that  so  many  authors,  Southern  and  Northern,  have 
suddenly  broken  out  into  the  discussion  of  the  so-called 
negro  problem,  it  is  nothing  more  than  fair  that  an 
other  negro  author  should  have  his  word  to  say.  The  very 
fact  that  these  Southern  contributions  cover  a  very  wide  range 
in  quality,  from,  the  really  high-toned  and  enlightened  work 
entitled  Problems  of  the  Present  South,  by  Edgar  Gardner 
Murphy,  down  to  the  demagogic  glorification  of  the  Ku  Klux 
Klan  by  the  Reverend  Thomas  Dixon,  Jr.  —  this  range  of 
thought  makes  it  only  right  to  recognize  the  effort  of  a  colored 
man  to  be  fair  and  plain-spoken  in  doing  justice  to  his  side  of 
the  house. 

The  attempt  to  do  this,  at  least,  is  visible  in  every  page  of 
the  book  to  which  this  is  a  preface.  One  who  like  myself 
has  visited  within  nine  months  the  heart  of  the  former  slave 
states,  who  has  seen  the  strong  effort  made  by  so  many  of 
the  Southern  whites  to  do  justice  to  the  negro  and  who  has 
talked  freely  with  Southern  public  men — in  my  own  case,  for 
instance,  with  the  governors  of  three  different  states — must 
needs  feel  an  impulse  to  take  a  hand  when  a  colored  writer 
enters  on  a  manly  and  courageous  argument  for  his  own  side, 
such  as  may  be  found  in  the  volume  which  follows  ;  and  I 
cannot'  decline  his  request  to  write  a  preface  for  him. 

Reading  the  book  with  some  care,  I  could  point  out  a  few 
passages  with  which  I  disagree,  .but  surprisingly  few ;  and 
in  some  of  these  cases  the  disagreement  proceeds  from  the  fact 
that  I  am  a  man  old  enough  to  recall  a  time  when  there  existed 
all  around  us  at  the  North  instances  of  the  same  kinds  of  in 
justice  of  which  we  now  properly  complain  when  we  see  it  at 
the  South.  It  seems  like  a  bit  of  Egyptian  darkness  to  Dr. 
Sinclair  for  those  states  to  have  entirely  separate  schools  for 
the  two  races,  but  that  does  not  seem  so  hopeless  an  evil  to  me, 
who  more  than  fifty  years  ago  in  two  different  cities  in  New 

xi 


INTRODUCTION 

England  took  a  hand  in  abolishing  just  such  schools.  The 
first  great  step  is  to  have  public  schools  at  all,  either  for  white 
or  black.  In  the  same  way  men  justly  complain  of  the  "  Jim 
Crow"  cars,  as  they  call  them ;  but  I,  who  can  remember  the  time 
in  my  childhood  when  a  colored  woman  was  taken  out  of  a 
stage-coach  opposite  what  is  now  Cambridge  Common,  because 
other  passengers  objected  to  her  color,  cannot  feel  the  evil  to  be 
so  hopeless  as  he  does.  The  South  is  merely  passing  through 
a  period  such  as  Massachusetts  passed  through  long  ago,  and 
the  great  fact  of  importance  is  that  it  is  being  passed  through 
and  men  will  get  beyond  it  sooner  or  later. 

I  can  remember,  in  the  same  way,  when  every  Boston  Di 
rectory  separated  the  two  races,  putting  the  colored  families  at 
the  end  of  the  book ;  and  I  can  remember  when  the  very  editor 
whojirst  made  the  change  told  me  of  it  beforehand,  begging  me 
to  keep  it  secret  that  the  newspapers  might  not  get  hold  of  it. 
"  When  the  people  once  see  it  done,"  he  said,  "  they  will  soon 
forget  that  it  ever  was  otherwise."  Thus  much  I  say  of  the 
execution  of  the  book,  which  is  in  almost  all  respects  admirable 
and  shows  much  more  thoroughness  in  dealing  with  both  sides 
than  any  book  recently  produced  by  a  Southern  white  man, 
except  that  of  Mr.  Murphy,  which  is  a  model  to  all  in  its  tone, 
though  even  that,  I  think,  does  here  and  there  a  little  less  than 
justice  to  the  negro. 

Even  this  book  does  not  fully  bring  out  the  utter  injustice 
done  by  Mr.  Thomas  Nelson  Page  when  he  ignores  plain 
facts  in  the  following  charge  against  the  Southern  negro : 
"  In  1865,  when  the  Negro  was  set  free,  he  held  without  a 
rival  the  entire  Jield  of  industrial  labor  throughout  the  South. 
Ninety -five  per  cent  of  all  the  industrial  work  of  the  Southern 
States  was  in  his  hands.  And  he  was  fully  competent  to  do  it. 
Every  adult  was  either  a  skilled  laborer  or  a  trained  mechanic. 
It  was  the  fallacious  teaching  of  equality  which  deluded  him 
into  dropping  the  substance  for  the  shadow."  (Pagers  The 
Negro :  The  Southerner's  Problem,  p.  127.)  Mr.  Murphy 

xii 


INTRODUCTION 

himself  incautiously  says :  "  TJie  South  has  sometimes  abridged 
the  negroes  right  to  vote,  but  the  South  has  not  yet  abridged 
his  right)  in  any  direction  of  human  interest  or  of  honest  effort , 
to  earn  his  bread"  (Murphy's The  Present  South, p.  187.) 

Yet  if  the  reader  of  the  present  volume  will  turn  to  Chapter  II 
he  will  find  many  pages  showing,  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Elaine 
and  of  Vice-President  Henry  Wilson,  that  there  was  a  long  period 
of  years  when  the  legislation  of  state  after  state  prohibited 
every  black  citizen  from  earning  his  living  by  these  higher 
forms  of  labor  which  Mr.  Page  now  blames  a  generation  of 
negroes  for  having  lost  from  their  grasp.  Were  it  for  these 
pages  only^  the  perusal  of  the  present  work  may  be  urged 
upon  every  fair-minded  man.  It  is  nothing  less  than  ludi 
crous  to  complain  of  a  generation  of  negroes  for  not  bringing 
up  their  boys  to  be  mechanics  when,  as  in  South  Carolina,  the 
legislature  enacted  that  no  person  of  color  should  pursue  any 
work  other  than  husbandry  without  a  special  license  from  the 
judge  of  the  district  court,  this  license  being  good  for  one  year 
only,  and  the  boy  aiming  at  it  having  to  pay  a  license  fee  of  ten 
dollars.  No  such  fees  had  ever  been  exacted  from  white  men, 
nor  even  from  the  free  black  man  during  the  days  of  slavery. 

THOMAS   WENTWORTH  HIQOINSON. 
Cambridffe,  Mass.,  Jan.  11, 1905. 


Xlll 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  SLAVERY 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   INSTITUTION   OF   SLAVERY 
AND   ITS   ABOLITION 

THERE  is  to-day  a  New  South,  and  the  colored  people 
are  a  material  part  of  it.  The  Old  South,  with  its 
gruesome  and  unholy  institution  of  human  slavery,  has 
passed  out  of  existence,  never  to  return.  It  has,  however, 
left  a  heritage  of  complicated  and  vexatious  problems,  the 
just  and  righteous  solution  of  which  will  tax  to  the  utter 
most  the  resources  of  the  statesman,  the  fidelity  of  the  church, 
and  the  patience  and  firmness  of  the  nation.  It  is  of  prime 
importance  to  note  that  the  existing  blighting  evils  which 
are  an  infliction  to  both  the  white  and  the  colored  people  are 
not  inherent  in  either  people,  but  have  their  roots  in  the 
essential  barbarism  of  the  slave  system. 

The  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  issued  by  the  immortal 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  intended  to  break  the  fetters  of  the 
slave ;  but  now  it  can  be  seen  that  it  was  also  an  emancipa 
tion  of  the  white  people  of  the  South.  For  slavery  manacled 
the  conscience  of  the  master  as  completely  as  it  did  the  body  of 
the  slave.  Unhappily,  neither  the  white  nor  the  colored  people 
are  yet  fully  set  free  from  the  brutalizing  evils  of  the  system. 
It  would  seem  that  emancipation  of  the  body  can  be  more 
readily  accomplished  than  the  emancipation  of  the  conscience. 

In  the  spirit  of  liberty,  however,  the  colored  people  are 
farther  removed  than  the  whites  from  the  old  regime.  To 
the  colored  people  freedom  came  as  a  boon  from  heaven,  a 
special  gift  of  God,  an  answer  to  the  agonizing  prayers  of 
centuries.  It  was  a  treasure  above  all  price.  But  the  white 
people  of  the  South  took  a  different  view  of  it.  They  loved 
freedom  for  themselves  and  would  die  in  defence  of  it ;  un 
fortunately,  however,  they  regarded  the  freeing  of  the  colored 
man  as  a  wrong  to  the  white  man.  The  virus  of  slavery  was 

3 


OF    SLAVERY 


present  in  the  brain  !  And  so  the  chief  efforts  of  Southei  A 
leadership  have  been  to  curtail  the  freedom  of  the  colorfed 
people,  to  minimize  their  liberty  and  reduce  them  as  nearly 
as  possible  to  the  conditions  of  chattel  slaves.  These  efforts, 
unremitting  and  sometimes  violent,  tremendously  affect  every 
phase  of  Southern  life. 

In  general,  a  spirit  of  cruel  intolerance  dominates  the 
*•  white  population  of  the  whole  Southland.  Its  church  life, 
despite  the  many  excellent  and  truly  Christian  members,  both 
men  and  women,  betrays  strange  deformities  and  inconsist 
encies  ;  in  large  measure  ignoring  alike  the  golden  rule, 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  divinely  beautiful  lesson  of 
the  Good  Samaritan,  and,  in  short,  the  more  vital  and  cen 
tral  truth  of  the  entire  teaching  of  Jesus  himself  —  the 
fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Christ's 
saying,  "  All  ye  are  brethren,"  is  not  interpreted  with  suffi 
cient  breadth  to  include  the  negro. 

f  "  Free  government  "  in  the  South  means,  in  the  attitude  of 
the  whites  toward  the  negro,  disregard  of  the  law,  the  repudi 
ation  of  the  orderly  processes  of  the  Courts  of  Justice,  the 
rule  of  the  mob,  and  cruel  proscription.^/  President  Lincoln 
declared  that  "  those  who  would  deny  liberty  to  others  are 
not  worthy  of  it  themselves/''  The  white  people  of  the 
South,  still  clinging  to  the  traditions  of  the  slave  system,  have 
continued  to  deny  liberty  to  the  colored  man  ;  and  to  this 
attitude  is  due  the  existence  in  that  section  of  a  state  of  law 
lessness  with  its  long  train  of  evils. 

It  has  thus  come  to  pass  that  mobs  torture  human  beings  and 
roast  them  alive  without  trial  and  in  defiance  of  law  and  order  ; 
mobs  shoot  down  women  and  children  who  have  never  been 
charged  with  crime,  and  against  whom  there  is  no  suspicion, 
—  it  is  enough  that  they  are  negroes.  Mobs  take  possession 
of  the  streets  of  great  cities  and  assault  and  shoot  down  inno 
cent  colored  people,  driving  them  from  their  homes  and  burn 
ing  their  property,  —  in  one  instance  more  than  a  thousand 

4 


SLAVERY   AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

colored  people,  men,  women  and  children,  being  driven  from 
their  homes  in  a  single  day.  Mobs  intercept  and  hold  up 
the  regularly  constituted  officers  of  the  law,  take  prisoners 
from  their  possession  and  shoot  them  to  death.  Mobs  break 
into  jails  and  take  out  prisoners  and  hang  them,  sometimes 
in  the  jail  yard,  and  riddle  their  bodies  with  bullets.  Mobs 
even  invade  the  sacred  precincts  of  the  court-room,  and 
during  the  actual  process  of  the  trial,  take  prisoners  from  the 
custody  of  the  lawful  authorities  and  shoot  them  in  the  very 
temple  of  justice,  or  hang  them  in  the  court-yard  in  the  pres 
ence  of  judge,  jury,  and  court  officers,  amid  the  shouts  and 
cheers  of  hundreds,  and,  at  times,  thousands  of  people.  In 
one  instance  sixteen  colored  men  were  shot  to  death  on  the 
floor  of  the  court-room  in  Mississippi,  during  the  actual  proc 
ess  of  the  trial  of  two  colored  men  charged  with  a  minor 
offence.  And  these  things  are  done,  not  in  a  corner,  but 
under  the  full  glare  of  the  noonday  sun. 

The  white  people  of  the  South  have  taken  pains  to  declare 
through  their  public  press  and  public  men  —  as  if  to  mitigate 
national  indignation  and  forestall  condemnation  —  that  all 
these  things  were  committed  by  their  "  best  citizens."  This 
is  a  most  startling  indictment  of  the  South,  and  by  the  South 
itself,  and  is  an  apt  illustration  of  the  saying,  "  Who  excuses, 
accuses."  It  is  not  contended  in  these  pages,  however,  that 
all  the  white  people  of  the  South,  or  the  most  of  them,  or  even 
the  "  best "  of  them,  are  given  over  to  unrighteous  or  riotous 
proceedings.  For  the  whole,  or  even  the  majority  of  a  people 
are  not  bad.  There  are  always  men  and  women,  true  and 
good,  as  honest  as  the  day  is  long,  who  "  love  mercy,  do  jus 
tice,  and  walk  humbly"  as  in  the  sight  of  God. 

But  that  there  is  a  prevalence  of  inconsistencies  and  barbari 
ties  and  a  reign  of  terror  and  blood  which  darken  the  sky  of 
the  Sunny  South,  the  land  where 

**  Everlasting  spring  abides 
And  never  withering  flowers," 

5 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

is  as  clear  as  the  light  of  the  sun.  The  white  people  of  the 
South,  however,  are  descended  from  noble  and  honored  ances 
tors,  who  were  imbued  with  the  highest  ideals  of  liberty, 
humanity,  righteousness,  and  orderly  government.  Many  of 
these  were  originally  opposed  to  the  introduction  of  the  insti 
tution  of  human  slavery,  while  others  were  sceptical  or  indif 
ferent  about  it,  and  still  others  accepted  it  in  the  spirit  of 
liberal  toleration.  It  is  a  generally  acknowledged  fact  that 
slavery  at  first  existed  in  a  mild  and  not  very  offensive  form, 
practically  devoid  of  the  barbarities  and  brutalities  which 
later  characterized  it,  —  the  slave  owner  being  somewhat  like  a 
feudal  lord  of  more  or  less  power  and  dignity,  and  the  slave 
holding  a  relation  not  far  removed  from  that  of  a  liege.  It 
is  indisputable  that  the  white  people  of  the  South  carried  on 
among  themselves  for  years  an  agitation  for  the  abolition  of  sla 
very,  and  that  they  probably  would  have  abolished  slavery,  or 
eliminated  it  by  colonization  or  some  other  means,  but  for  the 
determined  minor  element  composed  of  slaveholders,  whose 
influence  was  greatly  reinforced  by  the  invention,  in  1793,  of 
the  cotton  gin,  which  while  a  most  useful  invention  yet  has 
proved  a  curse  and  scourge  as  well  as  a  profit  and  blessing 
to  mankind.  This  invention  gave  a  tremendous  impetus  to 
the  demand  for  slave  labor  by  vastly  increasing  its  commercial 
value  :  it  put  new  life  and  vigor  into  the  slave  trade,  creating 
a  limitless  demand  for  slaves,  and  making  the  abolition  of 
slavery  practically  impossible  save  by  a  national  upheaval. 

Through  the  extension  of  the  interests  in  the  slave  trade 
and  slave  labor,  and  the  realization  of  the  enormous  profits 
resulting  from  these  sources,  came  the  Southerner's  dream  of 
wealth,  power,  and  dominion,  which  turned  any  general  senti 
ment  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  South  into  a  demand 
for  more  slaves.  Thenceforth  the  white  people  of  the  South 
dedicated  themselves,  not  to  the  development  of  their  free 
institutions,  but  to  the  building  up  of  a  slaveholding  oli 
garchy,  overbearing  and  cruel,  which  was  yet  to  challenge 

6 


SLAVERY   AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

the  nation  itself  to  mortal  combat,  to  cover  the  land  with 
mourning,  and  to  redden  a  continent  with  blood. 

This  invention  of  the  cotton  gin  raised  the  Cotton  Indus 
try  to  such  supreme  importance  that  cotton  became  king  of 
the  products  in  the  world's  market.  And  King  Cotton,  like 
Satan  in  the  temptation  of  the  Christ  on  the  Mount,  said  to 
the  Southern  whites  :  "  All  these  things  will  I  give  thee,  if 
thou  wilt  fall  down  and  worship  me,  —  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world  and  the  glory  of  them."  The  white  people  of  the 
South  did  not  resist  this  appeal  to  their  greed  and  love  for 
gilded  luxury ;  this  promise  of  untold  wealth,  power,  and 
dominion  that  was  held  forth  to  them.  They  betook  them 
selves  to  the  worship  of  King  Cotton. 

Truly  COTTON  was  KING.  It  became  their  worshiping 
fetich.  They  were  lured  from  their  high  ideals,  and  even 
threw  to  the  winds  those  basic  principles,  those  very  funda 
mental  truths  of  Christianity,  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man. 

"Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"  asked  one  of  old.  The 
white  people  of  the  South  were  no  longer  their  "  brother's 
keeper,""  certainly  not  the  keeper  of  their  "  brother  in  black." 

The  institution  of  slavery  increased  and  expanded  by  leaps 
and  bounds,  and  became  more  and  more  debasing  to  the 
whites  and  blacks  alike.  The  slave  trade  was  stimulated  as 
never  before,  and  those  engaged  in  it  became  brutal  beyond 
description.  The  appalling  sacrifice  of  human  life,  and  the 
wide-spread  desolation  incident  to  its  operation  were  matters 
of  public  knowledge.  Scores  of  African  villages  might  be 
laid  waste,  fire  and  sword  work  havoc,  and  thousands  of  old 
and  young  people  killed  in  order  to  secure  one  cargo  of  slaves ; 
but  what  of  that  ?  It  was  not  worthy  of  a  moment's  consider 
ation  that  to  deliver  a  single  slave  on  a  plantation  might  cost 
the  lives  of  half  a  hundred  of  Africans.  What  concern  was 
it  to  them  if  a  thousand  lives  were  sacrificed,  since  they  ob 
tained  that  one  slave  ? 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

The  ghastly  horrors  of  "  the  middle  passage  "  ;  the  clanking 
of  chains ;  the  wild  and  deep  groans  of  men  ;  the  heart 
rending  weeping  and  wailing  of  women  and  children  ;  the 
cruel  floggings  ;  the  agonizing  cries  of  despair  from  the  dying, 
to  whom  the  visit  of  death  was  as  the  visit  of  an  angel ;  the 
dumping  of  the  dead  into  the  sea  by  hands  dyed  with  human 
blood ;  the  crowding  of  these  ill-fated  and  hapless  creatures 
of  all  ages  and  both  sexes  into  the  dark  and  filthy  pest  holes 
of  slave  ships,  and  all  the  terrible,  unspeakable  agonies  of  body 
and  anguish  of  spirit  which  they  endured  —  all  this  and  more 
caused  the  slaveholder  no  worry,  no  loss  of  sleep.  The  con 
science  was  seared.  Remorse  was  dead. 

They  had  no  time  for  maudlin  sympathy.  Slaves  they 
wanted.  Slaves  they  must  have.  The  cost  in  horror  and 
blood ;  life,  pain,  and  devastation  ;  ruin  and  desolation  were 
as  nothing.  The  cotton  fields  must  be  developed,  extended, 
and  expanded ;  the  malarial  swamps  and  marshes  must  be 
redeemed  and  made  to  yield  their  harvest  of  golden  sheaves 
laden  with  the  pearly  grains  of  rice ;  all  the  land,  the  field 
and  forest,  and  even  the  earth  beneath  must  be  made  to  yield 
their  increase,  and  the  labor  of  slaves  must  accomplish  this. 
So  the  white  people  of  the  South  cried  out  for  slaves  —  and 
more  slaves  —  AND  STILL  MORE  SLAVES. 

It  was  impossible  that  these  things  could  have  other  than 
a  disastrous  effect  on  public  morality.  The  white  South  had 
indeed  fallen  from  its  high  estate.  Its  great  ideals  had 
gradually  faded  away. 

In  an  article  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  September,  1901, 
Mr.  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  speaking  of  the  condition  of  the 
South  at  the  time  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,  says  that 
the  South  was  "  without  ships,  without  money,  without 
machinery  that  could  produce  a  knife,  a  blanket,  or  a  tin 
cup  ;  without  an  ally,  without  even  the  sympathy  of  a  single 
nation,  without  knowledge  of  the  outside  world,  or  indeed  of 
her  able  and  determined  opponent." 

8 


SLAVERY    AND    ITS   ABOLITION 

Does  he  realize  the  cutting  irony,  the  bald  satire  of  his 
own  statement  ?  For  he  is  pleading,  as  he  always  does,  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  for  the  white  people  of  the  South ; 
apologizing  for,  or  justifying,  the  many  hardships  imposed 
on  the  negro,  and  seeking  always  to  discredit  and  prejudice 
him  in  the  eyes  of  the  nation.  His  is  indeed  a  pitiful  de 
scription  of  a  pitiful  civilization  ;  and  the  pity  of  the  pity  is, 
that  it  is  pitifully  true. 

The  worse  than  ghoulish  horrors  commonly  practised  by 
the  brutal  kidnappers,  or  African  slave  traders ;  the  ghastly 
spectacle  of  the  slave  auction-block,  where  slaves,  men,  women, 
and  children  were  examined  and  sold  as  though  they  were 
cattle,  and  the  heartrending,  inhuman,  and  disgusting  scenes 
attendant  thereon,  —  these  things  had  caused  throughout  the 
civilized  world  such  a  revulsion  of  public  sentiment  against 
the  institution  of  human  slavery  that  the  South  in  the  mo 
ment  of  its  great  extremity  was  indeed  absolutely  "  without 
an  ally,  without  even  the  sympathy  of  a  single  nation."  It 
was  these  ghastly  abominations  of  the  slave  auction-block, 
which  on  one  occasion  Abraham  Lincoln  witnessed  as  a 
young  man  when  on  a  visit  to  New  Orleans  in  1831,  that 
moved  him  to  declare  eternal  war  against  the  system  of 
slavery. 

The  incident  as  reported  is  this :  "  He  saw  a  slave,  a 
beautiful  mulatto  girl,  sold  at  auction.  She  was  felt  over, 
pinched,  trotted  around  to  show  to  bidders  that  said  article 
was  sound.  Lincoln  walked  away  from  the  sad,  inhuman 
scene  with  deep  feelings  of  unsmotherable  hatred.  He  said 
to  John  Hank,  who  was  with  him  :  '  If  I  ever  get  a  chance 
to  hit  that  institution,  1 11  hit  it  —  hard,  John.1 "  He  got  the 
chance,  and  did  "  hit  it "  ;  how  hard,  the  world  knows. 

It  is  worth  while  to  point  out  the  cause  of  the  backward 

and  pitiable  condition  of  the    South    in    1861,  which    Mr. 

Page,  with  lamentations,  so  accurately  and  pithily  depicts. 

'The   institution  of  slavery  laid   tribute  on  the  talent,  the 

9 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

statesmanship,  the  loyalty,  and  all  the  vital  forces  —  moral, 
spiritual,  and  material  —  of  the  South.J  It  was  the  all- 
absorbing  topic  ;  it  monopolized  the  brain  and  heart  of  the 
South.  All  other  subjects  converged  into  it. 

The  South  had  for  years  devoted,  even  dedicated  its  genius, 
its  strength,  its  energies,  to  the  institution  of  human  slavery, 
and  to  the  development,  protection,  expansion,  and  perpetu 
ation  of  the  system.  Its  genius  and  talent  for  other  things 
simply  shrivelled  up.  It  devoted  itself  so  completely  to  the 
institution  of  slavery  that  the  South  made,  what  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  declared  slavery  to  be,  "  an  agreement  with 
death  and  a  covenant  with  hell."  It  was  death  to  the  public 
morals  and  conscience  of  the  South ;  and  it  was  hell  to  the 
ill-fated,  helpless,  down-trodden  slave. 

The  institution  of  slavery,  as  bad  and  debasing  as  it  was 
for  the  negro  in  one  way,  was  probably  even  worse  for 
the  whites  in  another.  It  so  stupefied  the  conscience  of  the 
whites  that  even  now,  forty  years  after  the  destruction  of  the 
system,  they  show  but  few  signs  of  recovery  from  its  baneful 
effects.  It  so  twisted  and  perverted  their  moral  conceptions 
that  they  cannot  view  rationally  or  with  justice  the  simplest 
question  affecting  the  manhood  rights  of  the  negro. 

This  fact  was  demonstrated  when  President  Roosevelt 
simply  recognized  the  eminence  and  worth  of  a  colored 
American  citizen,  in  the  person  of  Principal  Booker  T.  Wash 
ington,  by  inviting  him  to  dinner.  What  was  all  the  con 
sequent  furor,  denunciation,  and  display  of  bad  temper  and 
worse  judgment  but  the  manifestation  of  the  entailed,  un- 
pitying  consequences  of  the  barbarism  of  slavery  ?  France 
honors  a  member  of  the  colored  race  as  a  general  in  her 
army  ;  another  has  been  vice-president  of  her  Chamber  of 
Deputies ;  others  occupy  high  stations  in  the  life  of  the 
nation  ;  a  number  are  in  her  leading  schools.  England's 
gracious  sovereign,  the  late  Queen  Victoria,  repeatedly  enter 
tained  colored  persons  at  breakfast  or  luncheon,  extending,  for 

10 


SLAVERY   AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

instance,  such  courtesy  to  the  whole  company  of  the  famous 
Fisk  University  Jubilee  Singers  ;  but  there  was  not  a  person 
in  the  whole  British  Empire  who  protested  against  it. 

The  most  powerful  emperors,  kings,  and  rulers  of  Europe 
have  extended  such  courtesies  without  having  public  decency 
shocked  or  violated  by  ribald  protestations.  Prince  Henry, 
the  brother  of  the  German  Emperor,  while  on  a  visit  to  the 
United  States,  and  when  every  minute  of  his  time  was  at 
a  premium,  denying  himself  to  many  prominent  people, 
especially  commanded  that  the  Hampton  Jubilee  Singers, 
colored,  be  presented  to  him  at  the  Waldorf-Astoria  Hotel. 
Such  instances  render  the  more  pitiable,  if  not  ridiculous,  the 
spectacle  that  the  South  made  of  itself  in  regard  to  the  Roose 
velt-Washington  dining  incident.  But  this  "  may  be  set  down 
to  the  not  yet  closed  account  of "  the  barbarism  of  slavery. 

This  system  of  slavery,  as  it  existed  in  the  South,  was  as 
black  as  moral  turpitude  could  make  it.  The  fond  words 
mother •,  home,  and  family  were  devoid  of  their  high  and  real 
meaning  to  the  slave.  For  he  lived,  moved,  and  had  his 
being  in  the  ever-present,  dismal,  and  benumbing  shadow  of 
the  auction-block.  His  was  a  life  approaching  moral  deso 
lation  ;  a  life  in  which  the  great  moral  incentives  begotten 
of  the  ties,  honor,  and  blessedness  of  the  family  life,  blood, 
and  name,  were  absent.  There  was  next  to  nothing  in  the 
family  life  of  the  slave  to  inspire  him  to  noble  purpose  and 
endeavor.  There  could  be  no  legal  marriage ;  the  constant 
separation  of  those  who  had  entered  into  the  marriage  rela 
tion,  by  the  sale  of  either  husband  or  wife,  made  this  impos 
sible.  For  the  wife  or  husband,  if  sold  every  day  in  a  week, 
could  marry  anew  after  each  sale. 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  that  wonderful  work  of  Mrs.  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe,  did  not  depict,  nor  even  scarcely  hint  at, 
some  of  the  grosser  evils  and  barbarities  of  the  system  ;  and 
yet  the  white  South  winces  over  it.  These  people  should  not 
be  blamed  for  being  so  sensitive  over  Mrs.  Stowed  incisive 

11 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

and  luminous  protrayal  of  the  life  and  civilization  of  the 
South,  although  the  worst  was  not  told.  Much  in  connection 
with  the  treatment  of  slaves  and  the  raising  of  them  for  the 
home  market  was  really  unprintable. 

The  buying  and  selling,  the  separation  and  breaking  up  of 
negro  families  were  common  all  over  the  South.  Neither  age 
nor  sex  were  regarded.  The  infant  was  snatched  from  the 
mothers  arms  ;  the  father  and  mother  of  a  family  were  torn 
from  each  other ;  they  were  sold,  each  in  a  different  direction, 
never  more  to  meet  on  earth.  Strange,  passing  strange,  that 
it  never  dawned  on  the  white  people  of  the  South  that 

*'  The  black  mother  who  rocks  her  boy 
Feels  in  her  heart  all  a  mother's  joy. " 

It  is  unquestionably  true  that  there  were  good  and  humane 
masters.  There  were  some,  indeed,  who  were  most  consider 
ate  to  their  slaves ;  and  others  who  never  even  became  recon 
ciled  to  the  system  of  slavery,  but  rather  hated  it  to  the  end, 
and  rejoiced  at  its  destruction.  But  this  was  the  exception, 
and  did  little  to  change  the  general  conditions  and  lessen 
the  evils  inherent  in  the  system.  Neither  Washington,  the 
father  of  his  country,  nor  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  author  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  believed  in  human  slavery ; 
Madison  is  credited  with  keeping  the  word  slavery  out  of  the 
Constitution  ;  while  Mason,  Tucker,  Randolph,  and  others 
opposed  the  institution. 

Thomas  Jefferson,  the  father  of  Democracy,  both  spoke 
and  wrote  against  slavery.  He  foresaw  that  there  would  be 
a  great  national  convulsion  over  it,  and  counselled  its  elimina 
tion.  He  left  on  record  these  prophetic  words,  "  Nothing  is 
more  certainly  written  in  the  book  of  fate  than  that  these 
people  shall  be  free."  The  South  did  not  take  heed.  If 
Thomas  Jefferson  were  living  to-day  in  the  dawn  of  the  twen 
tieth  century,  with  the  immense  strides  of  mankind  taken 
since  his  time,  he  would  tell  the  white  people  of  the  South 

12 


SLAVERY   AND   ITS   ABOLITION 

that  "  nothing  is  more  certainly  written  in  the  book  of  fate 
than  that  these  people  shall  enjoy  equal  rights  and  privileges 
before  the  law.11  The  white  people  may  disregard  the  warn 
ing  now  as  they  did  under  the  slave  regime,  but  infidelity  to 
truth,  justice,  and  good  order,  and  the  dragon  teeth  of  un 
righteousness  and  oppressive  laws  will  bring  a  bitter  harvest 
to  their  children,  and  may  long  plague  the  land. 

There  were  other  Southerners,  some  notable  ones,  who  from 
time  to  time,  because  of  their  conscientious  scruples  against 
human  slavery,  set  their  slaves  free.  Like  Abraham  Lincoln, 
their  souls  burned  within  them  with  righteous  indignation 
against  the  unspeakable  iniquities  of  the  system  ;  and  they 
sincerely  felt  that  "  no  man  was  good  enough  to  own  another 
man.11  Some  even  left  the  South  to  avoid  identification  with 
the  abominations  of  slavery,  and  took  up  their  residence  in 
the  free  North.  Some  sent  their  children  by  colored  mothers 
North  to  be  educated  and  to  live,  and  also  set  the  mothers 
free  and  removed  them  to  the  North  as  well.  There  were, 
and  still  exist,  instances  of  tender  and  even  affectionate  regard 
between  the  master  class  and  the  slave  class.  Since  emanci 
pation  there  have  been  some  of  the  master  class  who  have 
been  devotedly  interested  in  the  welfare  of  their  former  slaves, 
and  have  been  both  a  help  and  a  protection  to  them  ;  in 
some  instances  rescuing  them  from  unjust  treatment  and  the 
fury  of  lawless  mobs.  Nevertheless,  the  plain,  unvarnished 
truth  remains,  that  the  great  body  of  slave  owners  were  either 
inconsiderate  or  cruel  themselves,  or  put  their  slaves  into  the 
hands  of  heartless  slave-drivers,  overseers,  and  hard  task 
masters.  And  these  made  the  life  of  the  slaves  a  burden, 
grievous  and  hard  to  bear. 

Some  apologists  seek  to  gloss  over  the  iniquities  of  this 
system  and  even  give  it  a  patriarchal  tinge  with  divine  virtues  ; 
they  would  make  it  appear  as  though  American  slavery  was 
established  for  the  "  benevolent  assimilation  "  of  the  African 
negro.  It  is  true  that  the  white  men  of  the  South  did  ac- 

13 


THE   IAFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

complish  a  large  measure  of  "assimilation,*"  the  manifold  evi 
dences  of  which  are  to  be  seen  in  every  city,  town,  village, 
and  country  district  throughout  the  South ;  but  there  are 
grave,  very  grave  reasons  for  doubt  as  to  the  "  benevolent " 
character  of  this  "assimilation.""  What  good  the  milder 
slavery  actually  did  for  the  negro  was  in  spite  of  its  barbarity 
and  was  due  to  his  great  powers  for  absorbing  civilization. 
Slavery  was  in  no  sense  whatever  a  philanthropic  or  humani 
tarian  enterprise,  but  was  developed  and  conducted  on  the 
low  plane  of  avarice,  greed,  and  bestiality.  There  seem  to  be 
no  grounds  on  which  it  can  be  claimed  that  it  was  intended 
for  the  good  of  the  negroes,  who  in  their  low  estate  were  but 
chattels  to  be  marketed  and  sold,  and  at  their  best  were  but 
as  beasts  of  burden  to  toil  and  moil  in  order  that  the  master 
class  might  live  in  comfortable  ease  and  luxury. 

The  wide-spread  and  brutal  floggings  on  the  bare  body 
continued  in  some  cases  until  the  blood  flowed ;  the  bathing 
in  salt  water  to  increase  the  agony ;  the  general  use  of  blood 
hounds,  in  some  instances  making  them  lacerate  the  flesh  of 
the  slaves  to  give  them  a  taste  for  human  blood  and  make 
them  more  ferocious  and  thus  a  greater  terror  to  the  slaves ; 
the  devices  for  torture  such  as  the  stocks,  the  thumbscrew, 
the  pillory ;  and  the  varied  methods  of  stringing  up,  —  are 
some  of  the  "  fascinations  "  and  "  beauties  "  of  the  slave's  life 
which  the  apologists  of  the  system  ignore.  There  are  well 
authenticated  cases  of  slaves  being  whipped  to  death,  and  of 
others  dying  from  the  effects  of  the  floggings.  But  notwith 
standing,  to  borrow  the  title  of  one  of  the  beautiful  planta 
tion  melodies,  their  "  Hard  Trials  and  Great  Tribulations," 
the  slaves  continued  to  increase  in  numbers. 

They  learned  how  to  use  the  title  of  another  of  their  sweet 
melodies,  —  to  "  Steal  Away,  Steal  Away,  Steal  Away  to 
Jesus,"  and  find  strength,  comfort,  and  sustaining  help  in 
every  time  of  need.  They  seem  also  to  have  demonstrated 
that  liberty  is  an  instinct  of  the  human  heart;  for  in  the 

14 


SLAVERY   AND   ITS   ABOLITION 

blackest  hour  of  the  long  night  of  their  gloomy  bondage, 
they  sang  most  gleefully  and  with  joyous,  hopeful  hearts, 
another  of  their  soul-inspiring  melodies : 

"  One  of  these  days  I  shall  be  free, 
When  Christ  the  Lord  shall  set  me  free. " 

This  song  was  forbidden  by  the  slave  owners,  because  its 
spirit  would  tend  to  keep  alive  the  thirst  for  liberty.  It  is 
but  another  illustration  of  the  wisdom  of  the  man  who  said : 
"  Let  me  write  the  songs  of  a  people,  and  I  care  not  who 
may  write  their  laws/1 

The  negroes  hoodwinked  the  master  class  by  humming  the 
music  of  this  particular  song,  while  the  words  echoed  and  re 
echoed  deep  down  in  their  hearts  with  perhaps  greater  effect 
than  if  they  had  been  spoken.  These  melodies  were  to  them 
the  Incarnation  —  God  with  them  ;  and  to  their  keen  and 
simple  faith  He  seemed  to  be  visible  and  tangible,  ever 
present  and  ever  blessed.  These  songs  had  a  meaning  and 
power  which  all  men  may  appreciate,  but  which  the  negro 
alone  could  fully  comprehend.  Songs  are  the  heart-language 
of  a  people ;  and  as  the  negro  heart-language  it  is  not  sur 
prising  that  these  melodies  should  touch  and  melt  human 
hearts  the  world  over.  Queens,  emperors,  and  potentates 
of  the  Old  World;  the  President  in  the  White  House; 
the  most  cultured  and  fashionable  audiences  everywhere 
have  been  moved  and  melted  to  tears  by  their  rendition. 
Of  a  truth  as  a  heart-language  they  are  at  once  the  in 
terpretation  and  exemplification  of  that  wondrous  touch 
of  nature  "  which  makes  the  whole  world  kin."  In  them 
was  the  secret  of  the  sustaining  power  which  enabled  the 
negroes  to  weather  the  storms  of  their  bitter  afflictions  and 
sing :  — 

"  Nobody  knows  the  trouble  I  see, 
Nobody  knows  but  Jesus  ; 
Nobody  knows  the  trouble  I  see, 
Glory  in  my  soul. 

15 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"  I'm  sometimes  up,  and  sometimes  down, 
O  !  yes,  Lord  ! 

Sometimes  almost  to  the  ground, 
O  !  yes,  Lord  ! 

"  Nobody  knows  the  trouble  I  see, 
Nobody  knows  but  Jesus  ; 
Nobody  knows  the  trouble  I  see, 
Glory  in  my  soul !  " 

It  was  this  "  glory  in  the  soul  "  that  enabled  them  not  only 
to  withstand  all  the  grinding  experiences,  tribulations,  and 
bestialities  of  the  slave  system,  but  even  to  flourish  and  mul 
tiply.  Only  the  strongest  of  races  could  have  survived  this 
wasting  and  agonizing  strain  of  centuries. 

The  following  table  shows  the  increase  in  slaves  by 
decades  : 

YEAR.  NUMBER  or  SLAVES. 

1800 1,002,037 

1810 1,377,808 

1820 1,771,658 

1830 2,328,642 

1840 2,873,648 

1850 3,638,808 

1860 4,441,830 

A  factor  of  great  yet  weird  significance  in  Southern  life 
may  be  referred  to  here.  During  all  the  years  of  slavery, 
the  amalgamation  of  the  races,  though  practically  one-sided, 
was  going  on  with  ever-increasing  pace.  The  overwhelming 
evidence  of  this  widely  diffused  amalgamation  which  can 
never  be  blotted  out  was  written  and  bleached  indelibly  in 
the  faces  and  features  of  the  servants  in  the  dining-room, 
in  the  chambers,  in  the  nurseries,  in  the  sewing-rooms,  in  the 
laundries,  in  the  kitchens,  in  care  of  horse  and  stables,  of 
servant  gardeners,  messengers,  and  plantation  hands ;  it 
was  to  be  seen  in  servants  in  every  sphere  and  vocation  in 
Southern  life. 

The  white  men  of  the  South  had  endowed  and  were  still 
endowing  the  negro  slave  with  their  best  blood  and  greatest 

16 


SLAVERY   AND   ITS    ABOLITION 

names.  Some  of  these  slave  owners,  be  it  said  to  their 
credit,  did  treat  their  own  offspring  of  a  negro  mother  with 
consideration.  But  the  great  body  of  these  slave  owners 
would  sell  their  own  offspring  and  their  mothers,  together  or 
separately,  without  the  least  show  of  compunction  of  con 
science.  For  a  man  to  sell  his  own  children  and  the  mother 
of  his  children,  even  though  they  were  not  legitimate  heirs 
at  law,  into  a  bondage  where  hope  hardly  abideth,  is  a  mon 
strous  act  of  hard-heartedness.  But  such  monstrous  acts 
were  common. 

These  slave  owners  well  knew  to  what  a  horrible  life  their 
own  daughters  of  negro  mothers  would  be  subjected,  a  life 
worse  than  death  ;  but  this,  too,  was  of  little  or  no  concern 
to  them.  The  touching  lines  of  Longfellow's  "  The  Quad 
roon  Girl"  are  painfully  illuminating  on  this  point. 

In  this  connection,  it  may  be  remarked  that  an  exceedingly 
strange  phenomenon,  and  one  that  will  require  the  utmost 
resources  of  the  sociologists  for  a  rational  explanation,  is 
that  the  white  people  of  the  South,  who  under  the  degrad 
ing  influences  of  the  slave  regime  sold  their  own  children 
and  the  negro  mothers  of  their  children  into  a  bondage  black, 
bitter,  and  brutalizing,  are  to-day,  forty  years  after  the  de 
struction  of  slavery,  and  under  the  benign  light  of  a  more 
advanced  civilization,  ostracizing  and  outlawing  by  legisla- 
lative  acts  and  otherwise  disfranchizing,  lynching,  and  burn 
ing  at  the  stake  their  own  children  of  negro  mothers,  and 
the  children  of  their  fathers  and  grandfathers  and  more 
remote  ancestors. 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  in  connection  with  this  thought, 
that  the  three  colored  persons  —  Principal  Booker  T.  Wash 
ington,  who  was  invited  to  dine  at  the  White  House  by  the 
President ;  Dr.  William  D.  Crum,  who  was  appointed  col 
lector  of  the  port  of  Charleston,  South  Carolina ;  and  Mrs. 
Cox,  the  capable  and  accomplished  postmistress  at  Indian- 
ola,  Mississippi,  who  was  driven  from  her  position  and  vir- 
2  17 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

tually  expelled  from  the  town  by  a  brutal  and  lawless  mob 
of  the  much-vaunted  superior  whites  —  these  three  colored 
persons,  bearing  the  very  best  character,  educated,  cultured, 
property-owners,  and  in  all  the  essentials  of  life  superior 
to  many  white  people  of  the  South,  —  have  actually  more 
Caucasian  than  African  blood  in  their  veins.  And  not 
withstanding  which,  their  recognition  by  the  President  as 
American  citizens  fit  to  hold  office  threw  the  people  of  the 
South  into  hysterics,  and  brought  about  the  most  bitter 
denunciation  of  them  and  the  President  ;  and  some  South 
ern  whites  have  even  publicly  demanded  their  assassination. 
For  lack  of  a  more  intelligent  and  plausible  reason,  this, 
too,  "  may  be  set  down  to  the  not  yet  closed  account  of"  the 
barbarism  of  slavery. 

As  slavery  became  more  intrenched  in  the  South,  the  op 
position  to  it  became  more  pronounced  and  determined  in 
the  North.  The  people  of  the  North,  having  voluntarily  set 
free  their  own  slaves,  were  practically  united  against  the 
institution  of  slavery,  or  at  least  were  uncompromisingly 
opposed  to  its  further  extension.  Thus,  the  North  and 
the  South  faced  each  other  on  the  slavery  question  ;  the 
South  demanding  an  extension  of  the  system,  and  the 
North  its  limitation,  if  not  destruction.  Robert  Toombs 
of  Georgia,  a  leading  slave  owner  and  statesman  of  the 
South,  declared  that  he  would  never  be  contented  "until 
he  could  call  the  roll  of  his  slaves  at  the  foot  of  Bunker 
Hill  monument  in  Massachusetts."  Slavery  became  the  para 
mount  issue  in  national  politics,  in  great  religious  bodies, 
social  circles,  at  the  fireside,  everywhere.  It  was  the  all- 
absorbing  subject. 

While  many  of  the  antislavery  leaders  stood  firmly  and 
unequivocally  upon  a  broad  foundation  of  liberty,  humani- 
tarianism,  or  the  ethics  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  yet  it 
should  not  be  overlooked  that  they  were  strongly  urged  by 
the  fact  that  the  slave  labor  at  the  South  had  already  ex- 

18 


SLAVERY    AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

erted  a  degrading  influence  on  the  white  free  labor  at  the 
North  and  was  an  ever-increasing  menace  to  it.  The  white 
free  labor  of  the  North,  in  order  to  maintain  its  own  dignity, 
and  preserve  its  rewards,  must  perforce  join  in  the  crusade 
against  slave  labor  at  the  South.  This  positive  peril  of  the 
great  masses  of  white  toilers  in  the  North  being  reduced  to 
conditions  approaching  those  of  the  slave  in  the  South 
became  a  factor  of  great  importance.  Moreover,  the  aggres 
sions  and  intolerance  of  Southern  leaders  and  their  plainly 
expressed  contempt  for  the  laborer  greatly  increased  sectional 
animosities  and  augmented  the  ranks  of  the  abolitionists. 

In  the  fierce  and  bitter  conflict  of  words  that  arose,  the 
South  scored  signal  victories. 

It  obtained  the  Missouri  Compromise,  but  repudiated  the 
compact  when  it  served  its  interest  to  do  so. 

It  obtained  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  which  imposed  on 
Northern  white  men,  under  heavy  penalties,  the  duty  of 
hounding  down  the  fugitive  slave,  a  fellow-man  who  was 
guilty  of  no  crime  save  that  of  fleeing  a  bondage  which  was 
as  black  as  midnight  and  more  cruel  than  the  grave. 

It  obtained  the  Dred  Scott  decision  from  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States.  Chief  Justice  Taney,  speaking 
for  the  Court,  declared  that  negroes  "  had  no  rights  which 
the  white  man  was  bound  to  respect." 

It  obtained,  through  Preston  S.  Brooks  of  South  Carolina, 
the  silencing  of  slavery's  greatest  foe,  and  humanity's  greatest 
advocate,  Charles  Sumner  of  Massachusetts,  —  not  by  argu-. 
ment,  but  by  blows  of  a  loaded  cane  stealthily  given  on  the 
floor  of  the  United  States  Senate. 

Various  counties  in  the  State  of  South  Carolina  presented 
Brooks  with  gold-headed  canes  for  his  chivalrous  and  gallant 
act  of  thus  assaulting,  in  behalf  of  his  State  and  people,  a 
man  who  was  unsuspectingly  writing  at  his  desk. 

It  brought  John  Brown  to  the  gallows,  but  "  his  soul  goes 
marching  on."" 

19 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

The  slaveholders  were  aggressively  domineering.  They 
seemed  to  be  "  spoiling  for  a  fight,"  and  yet  they  felt  sure 
that  there  would  be  no  fight.  Was  cotton  not  king  ?  Be 
sides,  the  South  controlled  other  great  staples  of  the  world's 
commerce,  and  millions  of  hardy  and  faithful  slave  laborers. 
This  was  the  source  of  their  confidence  and  the  strength  of 
their  intolerance. 

Mr.  Hammond  of  South  Carolina,  in  the  United  States 
Senate  on  March  4,  1858,  said  :  "  Without  firing  a  gun, 
without  drawing  a  sword,  should  the  North  make  war  on  us, 
we  could  bring  the  whole  world  to  our  feet.  What  would 
happen  if  no  cotton  was  furnished  for  three  years  ?  I  will 
not  stop  to  depict  what  every  one  can  imagine,  but  this  is 
certain,  England  would  topple  headlong  and  carry  the  whole 
civilized  world  with  her.  No,  you  dare  not  make  war  on 
cotton.  No  power  on  earth  dares  to  make  war  on  cotton. 
Cotton  is  King."  War  did,  however,  go  on  for  four  years, 
but  England  did  not  topple. 

These  and  other  events  of  more  or  less  national  import 
crowding  thick  and  fast  on  each  other  fired  into  a  white-heat 
the  two  great  sections  of  the  country,  the  North  and  the 
South.  When  the  memorable  year  of  1860  came,  it  found 
the  nation  a  seething  caldron  of  political,  social,  and  relig 
ious  excitement.  The  time  for  the  election  of  a  President 
was  at  hand.  u  The  irrepressible  conflict "  was  on  :  it  was 
to  be  a  duel  to  the  death  between  the  pro-slavery  and  the 
an ti slavery  forces. 

The  forces  of  liberty  and  righteousness  were  triumphant. 
Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  God  sent  confusion  into  the 
councils  of  the  slaveholding  oligarchy,  which,  instead  of  nomi 
nating  one  candidate  who  might  easily  have  been  elected, 
nominated  four  candidates  and  was  defeated? 

"  Whom  the  gods  would  destroy,  they  first  make  mad." 

The  course  of  events  solidified  the  antislavery  forces,  and 
served  to  crystallize  the  antislavery  sentiment.  These  forces 

20 


SLAVERY    AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

and  sentiment  found  expression  through  the  Union  Repub 
lican  party,  —  a  new  organization  with  potentialities  for 
achievements  far  beyond  the  ken  of  the  men  who  stood  spon 
sors  at  its  birth :  a  party  born  unto  grand  moral  ideas,  and 
reviving  and  holding  fast  to  the  fundamental  principles  of 
liberty,  equality,  fraternity,  to  which  the  republic  was  dedi 
cated.  This  was  a  party  whose  supreme  services  to  the 
nation  and  whose  beneficent  and  lasting  work  for  humanity 
and  the  cause  of  liberty,  could  hardly  have  been  conceived  by 
its  founders.  It  was  a  party  ordained  of  God  not  only  to 
break  the  galling  fetters  of  the  slave,  crowning  him  with 
manhood,  and  emancipating  the  conscience  of  the  master, 
freeing  him  from  blood-guiltiness,  but  also  destined  to  lift 
the  nation  itself  out  of  its  circumscribed  provincialism  into 
the  sphere  of  the  broadest  nationality,  giving  the  republic  a 
foremost  place  among  the  great  nations  of  the  earth.  It 
was  destined  even  to  carry  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  other 
peoples  and  climes.  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  now  rejoice,  as 
the  Philippines  certainly  will  later  on. 

The  standard  bearer  of  this  party  in  this  historic  campaign, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  was  raised  up,  equipped,  and  called  to  the 
Presidency  of  the  republic,  as  providentially  as  Moses  was 
called  to  lead  Israel  out  of  Egypt.  He  was  the  ideal  man 
for  the  hour. 

The  slaveholding  oligarchy  interpreted  Lincoln's  election 
to  mean  that  their  power  was  broken,  their  dominion  over 
thrown,  and  that  the  institution  of  slavery  was  no  longer  safe, 
within  the  Union.  The  reasoning  was  swift  and  direct.  But 
slavery  must  be  saved  at  any  price ;  if  not  in  the  Union,  then 
out  of  it ;  peacefully  if  possible,  by  war  if  necessary.  It  was 
but  a  step  to  the  plunge  into  the  dark  abyss  of  secession. 
Secession  and  the  founding  of  a  great  slaveholding  empire, 
which  had  been  an  open  threat  for  decades,  now  seemed  im 
minent.  The  clouds  of  war  were  gathering.  The  murmurs, 
rumblings,  and  heated  utterances  were  so  foreboding  that  it 

21 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

was  deemed  wise  and  prudent  for  President-elect  Lincoln  to 
go  secretly  a  portion  of  the  way  from  his  State  of  Illinois  to 
the  seat  of  government  at  Washington,  because  of  well- 
grounded  fears  of  assassination. 

Lincoln's  inaugural  address  was  pacific,  but  firm.  He  de 
clared  that  his  most  solemn  obligation  and  paramount  duty 
was  to  enforce  the  Constitution  and  preserve  the  Union. 
Whether  the  leaders  of  the  South  did,  or  did  not  commit 
treason  when  they  took  up  arms  and  sought  to  overthrow  the 
government  of  their  country  is  not  a  part  of  this  discussion. 
There  seems  to  be  no  ground  for  doubt,  however,  that  many 
who  had  taken  the  oath  of  office  to  uphold  and  defend  the 
Constitution  and  government  of  the  United  States  were 
actively  engaged  in  planning  and  plotting  to  overthrow  the 
Constitution  and  to  destroy  the  government  to  which  they 
had  plighted  their  word  and  honor.  It  is  enough  to  say  that 
the  secession  of  Southern  States  followed  the  inauguration  of 
Lincoln.  These  leaders  plunged  the  nation  into  the  bloodi 
est  internecine  conflict  that  history  records.  Amid  the  loud 
diapason  of  the  cannonade  the  institution  of  human  slavery 
went  down  forever,  "and  the  government  at  Washington 
still  lives.1' 

The  storm  and  stress  of  the  antislavery  agitation  devel 
oped  many  magnificent  characters  who  lend  lustre  and  renown 
to  the  American  name.  Men  and  women  of  never  dying  fame, 
—  Charles  Sumner,  John  Brown,  William  Lloyd  Garrison, 
Wendell  Phillips,  Dr.  Gamaliel  Bailey,  Fred  Douglass,  Henry 
Highland  Garnet,  Lucretia  Mott,  Owen  Lovejoy,  Robert 
Morris,  Ben  Wade,  Peter  S.  Porter,  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
John  Greenleaf  Whittier,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  William 
Henry  Furness,  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow,  and  others  — 
gave  intellectual  and  moral  splendor  and  grandeur  to  the 
cause,  and  quickened  and  lightened  up  the  smoldering  con 
science  of  the  people.  They  shared  the  feelings  and  were 
inspired  by  the  brave  words  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  who 


SLAVERY    AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

said  :  "  I  am  in  earnest,  I  will  not  equivocate,  I  will  not 
excuse,  I  will  not  retreat  a  single  inch,  and  I  will  be  heard. 
I  solicit  no  man's  praise,  I  fear  no  man's  censure.  The 
liberty  of  a  people  is  the  gift  of  God  and  Nature.  Neither 
God  nor  the  world  will  judge  us  by  our  profession,  but  by 
our  practices." 

In  the  great  transformation  which  such  persons  wrought  in 
public  sentiment,  they  approach  unto  those,  "  who  through 
faith  subdued  kingdoms,  wrought  righteousness,  obtained 
promises,  stopped  the  mouths  of  lions,  quenched  the  violence 
of  fire,  escaped  the  edge  of  the  sword,  out  of  weakness  were 
made  strong,  waxed  valiant  in  fight,  turned  to  flight  the 
armies  of  the  aliens." 

Purely  as  a  matter  of  history  and  not  in  a  censorious  spirit, 
it  may  be  said  that  in  the  discussion  of  the  prosecution  of  the 
war,  the  South  can  hardly  escape  free  from  blame  for  much 
that  was  rash,  and  some  things  that  were  needlessly  cruel  and 
inhuman.  Its  treatment  of  Union  prisoners  was  often  cruel, 
and  sometimes  deliberately  and  purposely  so.  The  account  of 
Andersonville,  Libby,  and  other  prison  pens,  where  captured 
Union  soldiers  were  held,  disclosed  an  awful  and  most  shock 
ing  story  of  their  experiences  and  treatment.  Mr.  Elaine,  in 
an  address  in  Congress  on  this  point,  said  :  "  I  have  read  over 
the  details  of  those  atrocious  murders  of  the  Duke  of  Alva  in 
the  Low  Countries,  which  are  always  mentioned  with  a  thrill 
of  horror  throughout  Christendom.  I  have  read  the  details  of 
the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  that  stand  out  in  history  as 
one  of  the  atrocities  beyond  imagination.  I  have  read  anew 
the  horrors  untold  and  unimaginable  of  the  Spanish  Inquisi 
tion.  And  I  here  before  God,  measuring  my  words,  knowing 
their  extent  and  import,  declare  that  neither  the  deeds  of 
the  Duke  of  Alva  in  the  Low  Countries,  nor  the  massacre  of 
St.  Bartholomew,  nor  the  thumb-screws  and  engines  of  tor 
ture  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition  begin  to  compare  in  atrocity 
with  the  hideous  crime  of  Andersonville." 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

The  South's  attitude  towards  colored  soldiers  and  the  white 
officers  commanding  them  was  indefensible.  When  a  nation 
clothes  a  man  with  the  uniform  of  its  soldiers  and  puts  a  rifle 
into  his  hand,  and  sends  him  to  the  firing  line,  it  is  bound  to 
protect  him  in  all  the  rights  of  a  soldier.  To  put  a  money 
reward  on  the  head  of  white  officers  of  colored  troops,  or 
to  threaten  to  shoot  or  hang  such  soldiers,  and  shoot  or 
punish  their  officers  if  captured  is  scarcely  justifiable.  The 
Confederate  Congress  enacted  this  extreme  law  :  "  That  every 
white  person,  being  a  commissioned  officer  or  acting  as  such, 
who,  during  the  present  war  shall  command  negroes  or  mulat- 
toes  in  arms  against  the  Confederate  States,  or  who  shall  arm, 
train,  organize,  or  prepare  negroes  or  mulattoes  for  military 
service  against  the  Confederate  States,  or  who  shall  volun 
tarily  aid  negroes  or  mulattoes  in  any  military  enterprise, 
attack,  or'  conflict^n  such  service,  shall  be  deemed  as  inciting 
servile  insurrection,  and  shall,  if  captured,  be  put  to  death  or 
otherwise  punished  at  the  discretion  of  the  Court."  The  law 
also  provided  for  hanging  or  shooting  colored  soldiers  cap 
tured,  or  for  selling  them  into  slavery. 

But  neither  the  colored  soldiers  nor  white  officers  were 
daunted  or  terrified.  The  best  exemplification  of  this  is  the 
favorite  camp  song  of  the  Black  Regiments,  which  ran  in 
part  as  follows  :  — 

"  Fremont  he  told  us,  when  the  cruel  war  begun, 
How  to  save  the  Union,  and  how  it  must  be  done  ; 
But '  Old  Kentuck'  swore  so  hard,  father  '  Abe '  had  his  fears, 
And  wondered  what  to  do  with  the  colored  volunteers. 

"  Jeff  Davis  said  he  'd  hang  'em  if  he  should  catch  'em  armed. 
That 's  a  mighty  bad  thing,  but  they  ain't  at  all  alarmed  ; 
First  he 's  got  to  catch  'em  'live,  'fore  to  hang  is  clear, 
And  that 's  what  will  save  the  colored  volunteers. 

"  Then  give  us  the  flag  all  free  without  a  slave, 
We  '11  fight  and  defend  it,  as  the  fathers  did  so  brave  ; 
So,  forward,  boys,  forward  !  't  is  the  year  of  Jubilee  '. 
God  bless  America,  we  '11  help  to  make  her  free. " 


SLAVERY    AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

The  desecration  of  the  body  of  Colonel  Robert  Gould 
Shaw  was  a  dreadful  mistake.  This  gallant  young  hero  fell 
at  the  head  of  his  black  troops,  the  immortal  54th  Massa 
chusetts  Regiment,  on  the  parapet  of  Fort  Wagner,  near 
Charleston.  When  information  was  sought  as  to  his  body, 
the  curt  reply  was  :  "  He  is  buried  with  his  niggers." 

Colonel  Norwood  P.  Hallowell  of  the  55th  Massachusetts 
Regiment,  in  an  address  before  the  Military  Historical 
Society  of  Massachusetts,  says :  "  The  manner  of  Colonel 
Shaw's  burial  has  been  circumstantially  related  by  two 
Confederate  officers,  —  Major  McDonald,  Fifty-first  North 
Carolina,  and  Captain  H.  W.  Hendricks,  —  both  of  whom  were 
present  at  the  time.  Colonel  Shaw's  body  was  stripped  of 
all  his  clothing  save  his  undershirt  and  drawers.  This  dese 
cration  of  the  dead  was  done  by  one  Charles  Blake  and 
others.  The  body  was  earned  within  the  fort  and  there 
exposed  for  a  time.  It  was  then  carried  without  the  fort 
and  buried  in  a  trench  with  the  negroes." 

Colonel  Shaw  fell  on  July  18,  1863,  and  of  him  Colonel 
Hallowell  further  says :  "  Colonel  Shaw  was  in  the  twenty- 
sixth  year  of  his  age,  —  how  young  it  seems  now  !  —  and  had 
seen  two  years  of  hard  service  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
His  clean-cut  face,  quick,  decided  step,  and  singular  charm 
of  manner,  full  of  grace  and  virtue,  bespoke  the  hero.  The 
immortal  charge  of  his  black  regiment  reads  like  a  page  of 
the  Iliad  or  a  story  from  Plutarch.  I  have  always  thought 
that  in  the  great  war  with  the  slave  power  the  figure  that 
stands  out  in  boldest  relief  is  that  of  Colonel  Shaw.  There 
were  many  others  as  brave  and  devoted  as  he, — the  humblest 
private  who  sleeps  in  yonder  cemetery  or  fills  an  unknown 
grave  in  the  South  is  as  much  entitled  to  our  gratitude,  — 
but  to  no  others  was  given  an  equal  opportunity.  By  the 
earnestness  of  his  convictions,  the  unselfishness  of  his  charac 
ter,  his  championship  of  an  enslaved  race,  and  the  manner  of 
his  death,  all  the  conditions  are  given  to  make  Shaw  the  best 

25 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

historical  exponent  of  the  underlying  cause,  the  real  meaning 
of  the  war.  He  was  the  fair  type  of  all  that  was  brave, 
generous,  beautiful,  and  of  all  that  was  best  worth  fighting 
for  in  the  war  of  the  slave-holders1  Rebellion.1"1 

This  recently  made  estimate  of  Colonel  Shaw's  character 
and  place  in  history  was  shared  by  many  notable  Americans 
who  were  in  the  heat  of  the  fray,  some  of  whom  have  been 
gathered  unto  their  fathers. 

Charles  Sumner  said :  "  I  know  no  soldier's  death  finer 
than  that  of  a  young  commander,  at  the  head  of  his  men,  on 
the  parapet  of  an  enemy's  fort,  which  he  had  entered  by 
storm." 

Thomas  Hughes  declared  :  "  It  was  the  grandest  sepulchre 
earned  by  any  soldier  in  this  century." 

The  New  York  Times  said :  "  He  was  one  of  the  young 
gentlemen  whom  this  war  has  developed  as  a  soldier  and 
immortalized  as  a  patriot  and  martyr.  Of  high  social  posi 
tion,  surrounded  by  everything  to  make  life  dear  to  him,  he 
accepted  the  position  of  colonel  of  a  colored  regiment  to  help 
set  at  rest  the  question  of  respectability  of  that  arm  of  the 
service." 

Charles  A.  Dana  wrote  to  Colonel  Shaw's  parents :  "  From 
the  first  I  have  watched  his  career  as  a  soldier  with  a  tender 
presentiment  that  he  was  to  fill  a  bright  place  among  the 
martyrs  of  liberty.  With  the  grief  of  my  love  for  him  and 
for  you,  there  is  mingled  a  noble  consolation,  a  thrill  of 
almost  joy,  especially  when  I  remember  that  he  died  a  leader 
of  the  outcast  and  the  oppressed.  Such  a  death  of  such  a 
man  would  renew  my  faith  if  I  had  doubted  concerning  the 
end.  God  governs,  and  the  lives  of  so  many  among  the  best 
of  his  children  are  not  offered  up  in  vain." 

Governor  Andrew  spoke  of  him  in  a  message  to  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature  as  "  that  gallant  young  American 
whose  spotless  life,  whose  chivalrous  character,  whose  noble 
death  there  is  no  marble  white  enough  to  commemorate." 

26 


SLAVERY    AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  wrote  from  Europe,  where  he  was 
upholding  the  cause  of  the  Union :  "I  bear  your  burden 
with  you  and  yours,  and  I  cease  not  to  bear  all  your  pierced 
and  sorrowing  hearts  to  that  wounded  heart  who  consoles 
evermore  with  wonderful  love  and  tenderness."" 

John  Lothrop  Motley  wrote  :  "  When  we  all  of  us  have 
been  long  gathered  into  the  common  granary,  sculptors, 
painters,  and  poets  will  delight  to  reproduce  that  beautiful 
vision  of  undying  and  heroic  youth,  and  eyes  not  yet  created 
will  dwell  upon  it  with  affection  and  pride." 

The  New  York  World  said :  "  The  brutality  which  sought 
to  wreak  its  vengeance  upon  the  senseless  clay  of  what  had 
been  a  fearless  foe,  could  not  be  more  nobly  chastised  than  it 
is  by  this  lofty  and  living  pride." 

This  had  reference  to  Colonel  Shaw's  father's  statement : 
"  Our  darling  son,  our  hero,  has  received  at  the  hands  of  the 
rebels  the  most  fitting  burial  possible.  They  buried  him 
with  his  brave,  devoted  followers,  who  fell  dead  over  him  and 
arc  Mid  him.  The  poor,  benighted  wretches  thought  they 
were  heaping  indignities  upon  his  dead  body,  but  the  act 
recoils  on  themselves,  and  proves  them  absolutely  incapable 
of  appreciating  noble  qualities.  They  thought  to  give  addi 
tional  pang  to  the  bruised  hearts  of  his  friends  ;  but  we 
would  not  have  him  buried  elsewhere  if  we  could.  If  a  wish 
of  ours  would  do  it,  we  would  not  have  his  body  taken  away 
from  those  who  loved  him  so  devotedly,  with  whom  and  for 
whom  he  gave  his  life." 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  wrote  tenderly  of  him,  and  dedicated 
a  poem  to  him,  closing :  — 

**  So  nigh  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 

So  near  is  God  to  man, 
When  duty  whispers  low,  '  Thou  must,' 
The  youth  replies,  « I  can.'  " 

James  Russell  Lowell  said  :  "  I  would  rather  have  my 
name  known  and  blessed  as  his  will  be  through  all  the  hovels 

27 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

of  an  outcast  race  than  blazing  from  all  the  trumpets  of  re 
pute."  And  in  a  poem  on  the  heroism  of  Colonel  Shaw, 
Mr.  Lowell  also  wrote  :  — 

"  Brave,  good,  and  true, 
I  see  him  stand  before  me  now, 
And  read  again  on  that  young  brow, 

Where  every  hope  was  new, 

How  sweet  were  life!    Yet,  by  the  mouth  firm  set, 
And  look  made  up  for  Duty's  utmost  debt, 

I  could  divine  he  knew 

That  death  within  the  sulphurous  hostile  lines 
In  the  mere  wreck  of  nobly  pitched  designs 
Plucks  heart's-ease,  and  not  rue. 

*'  Happy  their  end 

Who  vanish  down  life's  evening  stream 
Placid  as  swans  that  drift  in  dream 

Round  the  next  river  bend  ! 
Happy  long  life,  with  honor  at  the  close, 
Friends'  painless  tears,  the  softened  thought  of  foes  ! 

And  yet,  like  him,  to  spend 
All  at  a  gush,  keeping  our  first  faith  sure 
From  mid-life's  doubt  and  eld's  contentment  poor, 

What  more  could  Fortune  send  ? 

"  Right  in  the  van, 
On  the  red  rampart's  slippery  swell, 
With  heart  that  beat  a  charge,  he  fell 

Foe  ward,  as  befits  a  man  ; 
But  the  high  soul  burns  on  to  light  men's  feet 
Where  death  for  noble  ends  makes  dying  sweet." 

Why  these  splendid  tributes  to  a  young  man  not  twenty- 
six  years  of  age  ?  It  was  recognized  that  he  was  "  the 
best  historical  exponent  of  the  underlying  cause,  the  real 
meaning  of  the  war";  "the  figure  that  stands  out  in  bold 
relief,"  and  dared  all  for  liberty  and  country,  justice  and 
humanity. 

Colonel  Robert  Gould  Shaw,  waving  his  sword  on  the  par 
apet  of  Wagner  at  the  head  of  the  54th  Massachusetts  Regi 
ment,  thrust  an  idea  and  a  force  into  the  mighty  conflict 

28 


SLAVERY    AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

which  neither  side  had  reckoned  on  at  the  opening  of  hos 
tilities,  and  which  many  competent  to  judge  declared  turned 
the  balance  of  the  scales.  It  brought  to  the  Union  arms 
about  two  hundred  thousand  colored  soldiers,  and  as  many 
more  colored  men  employed  in  various  lines  of  labor  and 
service. 

When  the  war  began,  the  South  regarded  the  slaves  as  the 
strongest  pillar  of  support  in  the  Confederacy.  These  were 
to  raise  crops  for  feeding  the  armies,  to  build  fortifications, 
to  do  other  service  in  camp,  and  to  care  for  the  women  and 
children.  But  as  the  war  progressed,  it  developed  that  the 
negroes  in  the  cotton  fields,  the  rice  swamps,  the  corn  fields 
were  quite  a  different  factor  from  the  negroes  in  uniform, 
with  musket  in  hand  and  in  battle  array.  What  the  South 
counted  its  greatest  strength  was  in  fact  its  greatest  weakness. 

The  North  was  quick  to  seize  the  advantage.  The  negroes 
were  equal  to  the  emergency.  "  The  grand  historic  moment 
which  comes  to  a  race  only  once  in  many  centuries  came  to 
them,  and  they  recognized  it."  The  slaves  were  used  most 
effectively  against  the  masters.  So  that  Colonel  Shaw's 
larger  service  to  his  country  and  humanity  was  in  demon 
strating  at  a  critical  moment  the  availability  and  heroism  of 
the  negro  as  a  soldier.  It  was  at  a  time  when  the  cause  of 
the  Union  was  wavering,  and,  as  Colonel  Hallowell  says, 
"  when  volunteering  had  ceased,  when  the  draft  was  a  partial 
failure,  and  the  bounty  system  a  senseless  extravagance.11 
While  it  is  true  that  the  negro  had  rendered  invaluable  ser 
vices  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  later  in  the  war  of 
1812,  yet  practically,  for  three  quarters  of  a  century  he  had 
been  under  the  lash  of  the  heartless  slave-driver,  and  had 
ceased  to  be  an  object  of  consideration  except  to  a  remnant 
of  God-fearing  philanthropists  and  courageous  humanitarians. 
The  organized  government  was  his  oppressor. 

It  is  just  to  say  that  Colonel  Shaw  gave  to  the  colored 
race  a  new  status.  He  brought  to  the  race  the  habiliments 

29 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

of  manhood,  and  the  race  crowned  him  with  immortal  fame. 
He  was  the  first  to  lead  the  negroes  in  large  numbers  into  the 
baptism  of  fire  and  to  prove  their  mettle.  Thenceforth 
neither  the  North  nor  the  South  doubted.  Colonel  Shaw 
himself  was  not  without  some  realization  of  the  magnitude 
and  glory  of  his  mission,  for  in  a  letter  to  the  lady  he  was  to 
wed,  he  wrote :  "  I  shall  feel  that  what  I  have  to  do  is  to 
prove  that  a  negro  can  be  made  a  good  soldier.  .  .  .  There 
is  great  prejudice  against  it,  but  now  that  it  has  become  a 
government  matter,  that  will  probably  wear  away.  At  any 
rate  I  shaVt  be  frightened  out  of  it  by  its  unpopularity. 
I  feel  convinced  that  I  shall  never  regret  having  taken  this 
step." 

That  he  took  great  pride  in  his  black  troops  and  had  full 
faith  in  their  soldierly  qualities  may  be  evidenced  by  a  letter 
he  wrote  of  the  first  battle  in  which  he  led  them  against  the 
Confederates  on  James  Island,  Charleston  Harbor,  July  16, 
1863.  He  said:  "You  don't  know  what  a  fortunate  day 
this  has  been  for  me  and  for  all  of  us,  excepting  some  poor 
fellows  who  were  killed  and  wounded.  General  Terry  sent 
me  word  he  was  highly  gratified  with  the  behavior  of  my 
men,  and  the  officers  and  privates  of  other  regiments  praise 
us  very  much."  He  also  wrote :  "  We  hear  nothing  but 
praise  of  the  54th  on  all  hands." 

Two  days  after  this  he  led  the  charge  on  Fort  Wagner, 
saying  to  his  friends  these  brave  words :  "  We  shall  take  the 
fort,  or  die  there.  Good-by." 

His  life  blood  was  poured  out  on  the  soil  of  South  Carolina 
and  enriched  it.  His  memory  is  a  heritage  to  the  nation. 

The  Shaw  School  at  Charleston  for  colored  youths  was 
named  in  honor  of  him.  The  Shaw  University  at  Raleigh, 
North  Carolina,  a  flourishing  institution  for  colored  pupils, 
also  commemorates  his  memory. 

Harvard  College  has  a  bust  of  him  in  marble,  carved  by 
the  colored  artist  Edmonia  Lewis,  once  a  slave,  but  now  a 

30 


SLAVERY    AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

sculptor  in  Italy ;  and  in  Memorial  Hall  at  Harvard  there 
is  also  a  life-size  portrait  of  the  hero  of  Fort  Wagner. 

Massachusetts  has  erected  a  monument  in  bronze  and 
marble,  on  the  Boston  Common,  directly  in  front  of  her  State 
Capitol  to  perpetuate  his  memory,  and  that  of  "  his  brave 
and  devoted  followers."  The  inscription,  composed  by  Presi 
dent  Eliot  of  Harvard  University,  is  as  follows  :  — 

TO    THE    FIFTY-FOURTH  OF    MASSACHUSETTS 

REGIMENT  INFANTRY 

THE    WHITE    OFFICERS 

TAKING  LIFE  AND  HONOR  IN  THEIR  HANDS  CAST  IN  THEIR  LOT  WITH 
MEN  OF  A  DESPISED  RACE  UNPROVED  IN  WAR  AND  RISKED  DEATH 
AS  INCITERS  OF  SERVILE  INSURRECTION  IF  TAKEN  PRISONERS.  BESIDES 
ENCOUNTERING  ALL  THE  COMMON  PERILS  OF  CAMP  MARCH  AND  BATTLE. 

THE    BLACK    RANK    AND    FILE 

VOLUNTEERED  WHEN  DISASTER  CLOUDED  THE  UNION  CAUSE.  SERVED 
WITHOUT  PAY  FOR  EIGHTEEN  MONTHS  TILL  GIVEN  THAT  OF 
WHITE  TROOPS.  FACED  THREATENED  ENSLAVEMENT  IF  CAPTURED. 
WERE  BRAVE  IN  ACTION.  PATIENT  UNDER  HEAVY  AND  DANGER 
OUS  LABORS.  AND  CHEERFUL  AMID  HARDSHIPS  AND  PRIVATIONS. 

TOGETHER 

THEY  GAVE  TO  THE  NATION  AND  THE  WORLD  UNDYING  PROOF  THAT 
AMERICANS  OF  AFRICAN  DESCENT  POSSESS  THE  PRIDE  COURAGE  AND 
DEVOTION  OF  THE  PATRIOT  SOLDIER.  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  EIGHTY 

THOUSAND  SUCH   AMERICANS   ENLISTED   UNDER  THE  UNION   FLAG  IN 
(M.D.C.C.C.LXIII-M.D.C.C.C.LXV) 

But  above  all  Colonel  Shaw  will  live  in  the  hearts  of  all  his 
countrymen  who  appreciate  noble  manhood  and  the  virtues 
of  heroism,  and  especially  in  the  hearts  of  the  multiplying 
millions  of  colored  people  whose  value  and  power  as  citizens 
and  as  soldiers  he  first  conspicuously  and  convincingly  im 
pressed  on  the  nation. 

31 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Of  Fort  Wagner,  Colonel  N.  P.  Hallowell  says:  "It 
was  armed  with  eighteen  guns  of  various  calibres,  of  which 
number  fifteen  covered  the  only  approach  by  land,  which  was 
along  the  beach  and  was  the  width  of  scarcely  half  a  company 
front  in  one  place.  This  approach  was  swept  not  only  by  the 
guns  of  Wagner,  but  also  by  those  of  Battery  Gregg  on  Cum- 
ming's  Point,  the  very  northern  extremity  of  the  Island,  and 
by  those  of  Sumter,  and  it  was  enfiladed  by  several  heavily 
armed  batteries  on  James  and  Sullivan  Islands.  Our  Fifty- 
fourth  Massachusetts  (Colonel  Shaw  at  the  head)  led  the 
column.  In  quick  time  that  devoted  column  went  on  to  its 
destiny,  heedless  of  the  gaps  made  in  its  ranks  by  the  relent 
less  fire  of  the  guns  of  Wagner,  of  Gregg,  of  Sumter,  of 
James  and  Sullivan  Islands.  When  within  two  hundred 
yards  of  the  fort,  the  rebel  garrison  swarmed  from  the 
bomb-proof  to  the  parapet,  and  to  the  artillery  was  added 
the  compact  and  destructive  fire  of  fourteen  hundred  rifles  at 
two  hundred  yards'*  range,  a  storm  of  solid  shot,  shells,  grape, 
canister,  and  bullets,  the  two  hundred  yards  were  passed,  the 
ditch  was  crossed,  the  parapet  was  gained,  and  the  State  and 
National  Colors  planted  thereon." 

The  bearer  of  the  State  flag  was  killed  and  it  fell  into  the 
fort,  and  its  possession  brought  about  one  of  the  fiercest  hand 
to  hand  struggles  witnessed  during  the  war.  As  the  bearer 
of  the  national  flag  was  killed,  Sergeant  William  H.  Carney 
sprang  forward  and  grasped  the  flag.  His  valor  was  attested 
by  wounds  in  both  legs,  in  the  breast,  and  the  right  arm.  He 
won  cheers  from  his  comrades  by  shouting  :  "  The  old  flag 
never  touched  the  ground." 

Lewis  H.  Douglass,  the  son  of  Fred  Douglass,  was  praised 
by  both  white  and  colored  for  great  heroism.  He  was  among 
the  first  to  mount  the  parapet,  and  shouted  :  "  Come  on,  boys, 
and  fight  for  God  and  Governor  Andrew."  Captain  C.  J. 
Russell  and  W.  H.  Simkins  were  especially  mentioned  among 
the  brave  officers  killed.  Among  the  officers  wounded  were 


SLAVERY    AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

Lieutenant-Colonel  E.  N.  Hallowell ;  Captains  Appleton, 
Jones,  Willard,  and  Tope  ;  Adjutant  James ;  Lieutenants 
Homans,  Smith,  Pratt,  Tucker,  and  Emerson.  Lieutenant 
Emerson  sheathed  his  sword,  picked  up  a  musket  of  a  fallen 
comrade,  and  used  it  effectively. 

Private  George  Wilson  was  shot  through  both  shoulders 
and  yet  refused  to  go  to  the  rear. 

Captain  Emilio,  and  Lieutenant-Colonel  E.  N.  Hallowell, 
in  turn,  succeeded  Colonel  Shaw  in  command. 

Colonel  N.  P.  Hallowell  also  says :  "  The  regiment  went 
into  action  with  twenty-two  officers  and  six  hundred  and  fifty 
enlisted  men.  Fourteen  officers  were  killed  or  wounded. 
Two  hundred  and  fifty-five  enlisted  men  were  killed  or 
wounded.  Prisoners,  not  wounded,  twenty.  Total  casual- 
ities,  officers  and  men,  two  hundred  and  sixty-nine,  or  forty 
per  cent.  The  character  of  the  wounds  attests  the  nature  of 
the  contest.  There  were  wounds  from  bayonet  thrusts,  sword 
cuts,  pike  thrusts,  and  hand  grenades ;  and  there  were  heads 
and  arms  broken  and  smashed  by  the  butt-ends  of  muskets." 

General  Hagood,  the  Confederate  commander  of  the  fort 
said  :  "  It  was  a  dearly  purchased  compliment  to  let  them 
lead  the  assault.  Their  Colonel  Shaw  was  killed  upon  the 
parapet,  and  the  regiment  almost  annihilated."  Lieutenant 
Iredel  Jones,  another  Confederate  officer,  said:  "The 
negroes  fought  gallantly  and  were  headed  by  as  brave  a 
colonel  as  ever  lived.  He  mounted  the  breastworks  waving 
his  sword,  and  at  the  head  of  his  regiment,  and  he  and  a 
negro  orderly  sergeant  fell  dead  over  the  inner  crest  of  the 
works.  The  negroes  were  as  fine  looking  a  set  as  I  ever 
saw  —  large,  strong,  muscular  fellows." 

General  Strong  —  who,  with  the  approval  of  General  Sey 
mour,  offered  the  place  of  honor  to  Colonel  Shaw  and  his 
men  in  leading  the  attack  on  Wagner  —  rode  up  to  the 
regiment  just  before  the  assault  and  encouraged  them,  say 
ing  :  "  Boys,  I  am  a  Massachusetts  man,  and  I  know  you 
3  33 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

will  fight  for  the  honor  of  the  State.  I  am  sorry  you  must 
go  into  the  fight  tired  and  hungry.'11  They  had  marched  all 
night  previously  in  a  thunder-storm  and  had  covered  six 
miles  that  afternoon,  subsisting  scantily  on  the  hard  tack  and 
coffee  carried  in  their  haversacks. 

As  a  matter  of  history  it  must  be  stated  that  colored 
regiments  had  already  been  formed  in  South  Carolina,  in 
Louisiana,  and  in  Kansas,  and  had  been  under  fire,  but  on  a 
comparatively  small  scale  as  yet,  and  had  attracted  little 
attention  in  the  Northern  mind.  The  First  South  Carolina 
Volunteers,  under  Colonel  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson, 
was  the  first  colored  regiment  in  the  field. 

The  enlistment  of  Colonel  Shaw's  regiment  was  accom 
panied  with  grave  apprehension,  and  John  A.  Andrew,  the 
great  war  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  voiced  his  deep  concern 
in  presenting  the  colors.  Many  prominent  people  were  pres 
ent.  Governor  Andrew  said  :  "  My  own  personal  honor, 
if  I  have  any,  is  identified  with  yours.  I  stand  or  fall  as  a 
man  and  a  magistrate  with  the  rise  and  the  fall  in  the  history 
of  the  54th  Massachusetts  Regiment.  I  know  not,  sir,  when 
in  all  human  history  to  any  given  one  thousand  men  in  arms 
there  has  been  permitted  a  work  at  once  so  proud,  so  pre 
cious,  and  so  full  of  hope  and  glory  as  the  work  committed 
to  you.  And  may  the  infinite  mercy  of  the  Almighty  God 
attend  you  every  hour  of  every  day  through  all  the  experi 
ences  and  vicissitudes  of  that  dangerous  life  in  which  you 
have  embarked. 

"  May  the  God  of  our  fathers  cover  your  head  in  the  day 
of  battle.  This  flag,  sir,  has  connected  with  its  history  the 
most  touching  and  sacred  memory.  It  comes  to  your  regi 
ment  from  the  mother,  sister,  and  family  relations  of  one  of 
the  dearest  and  noblest  soldier  boys  of  Massachusetts.  I  need 
but  utter  the  name  of  Lieutenant  Putnam  in  order  to  excite 
in  every  heart  the  tenderest  emotions  of  fond  regard  or  the 
strongest  feelings  of  patriotic  fire." 

34 


SLAVERY    AND    ITS    ABOLITION 

Happily  indeed  for  the  colored  race,  and  for  the  republic, 
the  soldier  boys  of  the  54th  Massachusetts  Regiment  not 
only  met,  but  surpassed  the  highest  expectations  of  friends, 
and  put  to  confusion  doubters,  critics,  and  detractors. 

Mr.  Ezra  A.  Cook,  now  a  publisher  at  Chicago,  but  then 
on  the  firing  line  says :  "  The  bravery  of  this  colored  regi 
ment  was  so  conspicuous  as  to  revolutionize  the  sentiment  of 
the  Federal  soldiers,  a  majority  of  whom  had  been  opposed 
to  the  colored  soldiery  up  to  that  time.  Those  who  had  the 
most  fiercely  denounced  their  employment  previously,  after 
this  assault  expressed  pleasure  at  being  put  into  the  same 
brigade  with  the  colored  troops.1'' 

Fort  Wagner  opened  a  new  epoch  in  American  history. 
It  changed  the  thought  and  current  of  national  life.  It 
showed  and  sanctified  the  chattel  slave  —  a  MAN. 

It  only  remains  to  be  said  that  the  broad  mantle  of  charity 
now  covers  all  these  harrowing  events.  The  experience  was 
bitter,  terrible ;  the  cost,  staggering.  But  they  are  thought 
of  now  only  as  matters  of  history.  The  lessons  they  teach, 
however,  are  not  to  be  minimized  or  forgotten  by  either  the 
North  or  the  South.  But  the  Civil  War  is  a  thing  of  the  past. 
It  should  be  and  is  regarded  as  a  by -gone  event.  No  South 
erner  is  judged  to-day  by  the  part  he  took  in  it.  So  is  slav 
ery  a  by-gone  condition.  There  is  and  can  be  no  place  in 
the  life  and  government  of  this  great  republic  for  the  retain- 
ment  of  its  barbarous  traditions  and  brutal  ideals.  It  would 
make  for  the  peace  and  well-being  of  the  nation  for  the  white 
people  of  the  South  to  come  to  this  realization.  The  God  of 
the  universe  made  the  negro  a  man.  The  nation  clothed 
him  with  citizenship.  His  services  in  peace  and  in  war  con 
firm  unto  him  every  right  of  an  American. 

Let  the  white  people  of  the  South  cease  to  live  in  the  past, 
and  rather  let  them  profit  by  the  awful  lesson  with  all  its 
solemn  and  bitter  warnings,  that  — 

35 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"  Long  trains  of  ills  may  pass  unheeded,  dumb, 
But  vengeance  is  behind  and  justice  is  to  come. " 

Let  them  with  conscience  void  of  offence  toward  God  and 
man  face  the  future,  and,  "  forgetting  the  things  which  are 
behind,  and  looking  forward  to  the  things  which  are  before," 
let  them  establish  law  and  order  and  demonstrate  their 
capacity  for  self-government  by  working  out  a  government 
which  shall  bestow  no  special  favors  or  privileges  on  men 
because  God  made  them  white ;  and  which  shall  do  no  injus 
tice  to  men  because  God  made  them  black. 

Then  indeed  shall  righteousness  set  up  her  habitations ; 
truth  and  justice  shall  be  enthroned  ;  and  civilization,  Chris 
tianity,  and  government  in  the  Southland  shall  stand  redeemed, 
regenerated,  and  disenthralled  —  a  glory  forever. 


86 


CHAPTER  II 

RECONSTRUCTION    AND    THE 
SOUTHERN  "  BLACK  CODE  " 

THE   close   of  the   war   was  followed   by   the   era   of 
Reconstruction.      The   war  suppressed   the  rebellion; 
reconstruction  brought    forth  order  out  of  the  result 
ing  chaos. 

This  era  of  Reconstruction  witnessed  the  issue  of  the 
Proclamation  of  Amnesty  by  President  Johnson,  which 
pardoned  all  who  took  part  in  the  rebellion,  except  a  few 
thousands  who  held  high  civil  or  military  or  diplomatic 
positions  before  and  during  the  war,  and  made  provision  that 
even  these  could  obtain  pardon  by  the  mere  asking  for  it  and 
swearing  allegiance  to  the  Constitution  and  Government  of 
the  United  States.  This  period  also  witnessed  the  enactment 
of  the  "  Black  Code "  by  the  legislatures  of  the  seceding 
states ;  the  enactment  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
of  the  Thirteenth,  Fourteenth,  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to 
the  Constitution  ;  the  overthrow  of  the  "  Black  Code  ; "  the 
final  annihilation  of  the  institution  of  human  slavery  in  the 
South  ;  the  fixing  forever  the  status  of  American  citizenship ; 
the  rehabilitation  of  the  seceding  states,  and  the  resumption 
of  their  autonomy  in  the  Union ;  the  mustering  out  and  re 
turn  to  their  homes  and  the  marts  of  trade  of  more  than 
a  million  "  citizen  soldiers,"  200,000  of  them  colored,  crowned 
with  glory  and  honor,  who  counted  it  not  dear  unto  them 
selves  to  offer  their  lives  a  willing  sacrifice  on  the  altar  of 
their  country,  and  who,  by  their  deeds  of  valor  and  heroic 
sacrifices,  smothered  the  rebellion,  preserved  the  republic  from 
dismemberment,  and  vindicated  the  sovereignty  of  the  nation. 
The  era  of  Reconstruction  was  fraught  with  gravest  solici 
tude  and  crowded  with  vital,  complicated,  vexatious,  and 
far-reaching  issues :  issues  that  not  only  affected  the  status, 

37 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

liberty,  and  rights  of  the  colored  people,  but  were  of  equally 
supreme  importance  to  the  republic  and  to  constitutional 
government,  and  in  fact  of  greatest  concern  to  the  whole 
human  family,  since  it  seemingly  involved  the  matter  of  the 
life  or  death  of  the  experiment  of  self-government  by  the 
people. 

It  was  an  era  which  tried  men^s  souls.  Fortunately  for 
the  republic  and  the  vast  and  far-reaching  interests  at  stake,  or 
hanging  in  the  balance,  there  were  at  the  helm  and  standing 
guard  on  the  deck  of  the  "  Old  Ship  of  State  "  men  trained 
in  self-mastery  and  self-restraint ;  men  rooted  and  grounded 
in  the  principles  of  liberty  and  republican  government ;  men 
responsive  to  the  dictates  of  humanity  and  Christianity, 
sympathetic  and  charitable ;  men  who  faced  with  calmness 
and  composure  the  passions  within  their  own  councils  and  the 
defiance  hurled  at  them  from  the  South ;  men  broad  in 
learning  and  culture ;  men  with  a  genius  for  statecraft  and 
masters  in  statesmanship ;  men  who  saw  and  knew  the  right 
and  dared  to  do  it. 

In  the  foundation  of  the  republic,  as  laid  by  the  fathers, 
there  was  one  radical,  vital  defect,  which  has  ever  remained  a 
peril  to  the  majestic  structure  of  liberty  and  self-government 
which  they  built  so  well.  It  was  the  rotten  stone  of  human 
slavery, —  an  ever  present  challenge  and  reproach  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  always  a  menace  to  the 
peace  and  perpetuity  of  American  institutions. 

The  leaders  of  the  Reconstruction  era  dug  out  this  rotten 
stone,  and  replaced  it  with  indestructible  foundation-stone : 
Equality  of  rights  for  all  men  before  the  law  —  the  only  safe 
and  enduring  foundation  for  the  Temple  of  Liberty.  Thus 
they  crystallized  into  law  the  most  glorious  sentiment  of  the 
ages:  "A  government  conceived  in  liberty  and  dedicated  to 
the  principle  that  all  men  are  created  equal."  In  placing 
the  republic  squarely,  solidly,  and  for  all  time  on  this  broad 
foundation,  "  which  time  cannot  wither,  nor  age  decay,"  they 

38 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

conserved  the  liberties  won  and  progress  achieved  in  centuries 
of  struggles,  and  revived  the  drooping  hopes  of  mankind  by 
making  it  positive  that  "  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have 
a  new  birth  of  freedom."  Unholy  is  the  hand  that  would 

J 

remove  this  foundation-stone,  hewn  of  Heaven,  making  all  men 
equal  under  the  law  of  the  land,  as  they  are  equal  under  the 
law  of  nature  and  nature's  God  !  Vile  is  the  tongue  that 
would  assault  the  temple  of  the  nation's  liberty  and  the 
world's  hope  built  thereon  ! 

The  white  people  of  the  South,  wherever  dominated  in  the 
main  by  unbalanced,  superheated  leadership,  have  been 
wrought  into  a  frenzy, —  a  frenzy  dangerous  to  themselves 
and  to  the  best  interests  of  their  fair  land  ;  dangerous  to 
civilization  and  to  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  nation. 
Reason,  common-sense,  and  the  nobler  instincts  of  humanity 
seem  to  have  left  them  for  the  time.  Primarily,  this  is 
due  to  the  influences  begotten  of  the  barbarism  incident  to 
the  institution  of  human  slavery  ;  for  the  barbarism  of  slavery 
has  not  even  yet  exacted  its  last  penalty. 

The  nation  accepted  and  nurtured  slavery,  and  it  is  still 
suffering  the  consequences  of  its  noxious  poisons.  Let  the 
nation  be  warned  of  the  more  serious  consequences  which 
would  follow  the  obliteration  of  the  liberty  and  hope  of  the 
colored  people,  and  the  consignment  of  them  to  practical 
serfdom.  It  is  an  adage  hoary  with  age  that  "  the  dancers 
must  pay  the  fiddlers."  Great  wrongs  are  sure  to  bring  great 
retributions.  But  it  ought  to  be  plain  to  every  one,  includ 
ing  the  white  people  of  the  South,  that  the  ideals  and 
standards  of  the  defunct  slaveholding  oligarchy  can  never 
again  prevail  in  this  land  over  the  holy  principles  of  liberty 
and  free  institutions. 

The  violent  Southern  leaders  trace  their  grievances  back 
to  the  events  of  the  Reconstruction  era.  They  make  many 
misleading  and  mischievous  declarations  about  the  "  damn 
able  crime  "  committed  on  the  white  people  of  the  South  by 

39 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

giving  the  negro  the  ballot,  and  restoring  to  him  the  rights 
of  "  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,"  the  heritage 
of  every  human  being.  They  exercise  extraordinary  care, 
however,  to  omit  absolutely  all  reference  to  the  causes  and 
conditions  which  made  negro  suffrage  a  possibility,  namely  : 

First,  the  war  which  the  South  waged  against  the  nation 
in  its  desperate  struggles  for  four  years  to  rend  and  destroy 
it. 

Second,  the  enactment  by  Southern  legislatures  —  com 
posed  entirely  of  ex-Confederates,  after  the  war  had  closed, 
and  the  white  people  of  the  South  were  given  an  absolutely 
free  hand  under  the  proclamation  of  President  Johnson  to 
reconstruct  their  respective  States  —  of  the  "  Black  Code," 
the  most  barbarous  series  of  laws  ever  written  by  a  civilized 
people. 

Third,  the  flat,  defiant  refusal  of  the  white  people  of  many 
Southern  states  to  reconstruct  their  state  governments  in 
harmony  with  the  changed  conditions  produced  by  the  war, 
as  embodied  in  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  and  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  which  abolished  slavery. 

Fourth,  the  curt  and  indignant  refusal  of  the  white  people 
of  some  Southern  states  even  to  participate  in  such  recon 
struction  unless  they  were  permitted  to  have  their  own  way 
in  re-establishing  a  new  form  of  slavery,  —  to  be  in  some 
respects  even  worse  than  the  system  which  the  war  had 
overthrown. 

But  if  a  crime  was  committed  on  the  white  people  of  the 
South,  there  must  have  been  criminals  who  committed  the 
crime.  Who  were  these  criminals?  Among  the  great 
leaders  of  this  era  who  had  more  or  less  to  do  in  formulating 
and  completing  the  measures  of  reconstruction,  there  may  be 
mentioned,  without  any  attempt  at  invidious  distinction, 
Charles  Sumner,  Henry  Winter  Davis,  William  Pitt  Fessen- 
den,  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  Henry  Wilson,  Lyman  Trumbull, 

40 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

James  G.  Elaine,  George  S.  Boutwell,  Zachary  Chandler, 
James  A.  Garfield,  N.  P.  Banks,  Lot  M.  Merrill,  Roscoe 
Conkling,  John  Sherman,  James  W.  Grimes,  Ira  P.  Harris, 
Jacob  M.  Howard,  Thaddeus  Stevens,  Elihu  B.  Washburn, 
Justin  S.  Morrill,  John  A.  Bingham,  Henry  T.  Blow, 
George  F.  Edmunds,  Oliver  P.  Morton,  Schuyler  Colfax, 
Benjamin  F.  Butler,  H.  L.  Dawes,  W.  B.  Washburn,  W.  D. 
Kelley,  Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  Samuel  Shellabarger,  James 
M.  Ashley,  S.  M.  Cullom,  John  A.  Logan,  Thomas  W. 
Ferry,  W.  B.  Allison,  Ignatius  Donnelly,  Philetus  Sawyer, 
William  Windom,  G.  M.  Dodge,  William  Lawrence,  C.  C. 
Washburn,  John  A.  Kasson,  Russell  Thayer,  George  F. 
Hoar,  James  Harlan,  Matt.  H.  Carpenter,  Hannibal  Hamlin, 
Carl  Schurz,  Eugene  Hale,  O.  D.  Conger,  Timothy  O.  Howe, 
and  Noah  Davis.  Here  is  a  roster  of  American  statesmen 
the  equal  of  any  that  ever  faced  a  great  crisis  in  the  history 
of  the  nation.  Shall  the  memory  of  these  men  and  their 
compeers  rest  under  the  black  imputation  of  criminality? 
What  serious  citizen  would  think  of  mentioning  in  the  same 
breath  these  devoted  patriots,  well-poised  and  self-contained, 
with  the  leaders  like  Tillman,  Money,  McHenery,  Vardaman, 
not  to  mention  "  Tray,  Blanche,  and  Sweet-heart,"  et  al., 
who  to-day  seek  to  dominate  the  fair  Southland? 

The  Northern  leaders  of  this  era  were  supported  in  every 
step  taken  by  the  great  commanders  who  suppressed  the 
rebellion :  Generals  Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan,  Hooker, 
Howard,  Hartranft,  Chamberlain,  Cox,  Burnside,  Meade, 
Miles,  Hawley,  Gresham,  Anderson,  Thomas,  Birney,  and 
their  comrades  of  the  land  forces,  and  Admirals  Farragut 
and  Porter  and  others  of  the  naval  forces.  The  movement 
was  also  supported  by  the  great  leaders  of  public  sentiment 
in  the  nation,  headed  by  Henry  Ward  Beecher ;  the  whole 
being  reinforced  by  the  twenty  millions  of  loyal  Americans 
who  willingly  contributed  the  treasure  and  blood  which 
saved  the  Union  and  emancipated  the  slave. 

41 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

If  the  Northern  civil  leaders  of  this  era  were  criminals,  or  com 
mitted  a  crime  against  the  South,  then  the  great  commanders 
of  the  army  and  navy  and  the  vast  majority  of  the  people  of 
the  loyal  States  were  sharers  in  the  crime.  In  such  a  case 
virtue  and  patriotism  resided  only  with  the  men  who  used 
their  might  and  main  to  destroy  the  republic,  and  after 
wards  to  re-establish  slavery.  To  lay  the  taint  of  criminality, 
directly  or  indirectly,  by  inference  or  otherwise,  on  the 
leaders  of  reconstruction,  the  saviors  of  the  republic,  the 
master  builders  who  launched  it  on  its  "  new  birth  of  free 
dom  "  —  is  in  itself  a  shocking  offence  to  the  patriotic  citizen. 
Within  a  brief  period  General  Sherman  has  been  referred  to 
by  Southern  leaders  as  the  "  brute  who  burned  Columbia,11 
and  General  Canby  as  the  4<  scoundrel  who  fastened  carpet 
bag  government  on  the  Carolinas  ; "  John  Brown  as  "  an  old 
fanatic  and  murderer,"  and  General  Sherman's  army  as 
composed  of  "  chicken  thieves,  robbers,  bums,  and  the  scum 
and  filth  of  Northern  cities,"  who  preyed  on  the  people  of 
the  South. 

These  charges  are  false.  The  memory  of  the  great  states 
men  and  leaders  of  the  Reconstruction  era,  and  as  well  the 
brave  men  who  risked  all  on  land  and  sea  to  save  the 
nation's  life,  lies  embalmed  in  the  hearts  of  a  grateful  and 
loyal  people,  and  should  be  held  as  a  sacred  legacy,  free  from 
detraction  and  defamation.  They  not  only  did  not  commit 
a  crime  against  the  white  people  of  the  South,  but  on  the  con 
trary  displayed  a  gracious  magnanimity  and  generosity  in 
dealing  with  the  people  of  that  section ;  and  in  handling  the 
delicate,  perplexing  issues  of  their  day,  they  showed  a  con 
servatism  that  is  unmatched  in  recorded  history.  Gen 
erously  they  offered  the  olive  branch  of  peace  and  good- will ; 
but  the  South  rejected  it  with  scorn  and  contempt. 

Says  Mr.  Elaine,  in  his  "  Twenty  Years  of  Congress  "  :  "A 
great  opportunity  was  now  given  to  the  South.  Only  a  few 
weeks  before,  they  had  all  been  expecting  harsh  treatment, 

42 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

many,  indeed,  anticipated  punishment,  not  a  few  were  de 
jectedly  looking  forward  to  a  life  of  exile  and  want.  The 
President's  policy,  which  had  been  framed  for  him  by  Mr. 
Seward,  changed  all  this.  Confidence  took  the  place  of 
apprehension,  the  fear  of  punishment  was  removed,  those 
who,  conscious  of  guilt,  had  been  dreading  expatriation 
were  bidden  by  the  supreme  authority  of  the  nation  to  stay 
in  their  own  homes  and  to  assist  in  building  up  the  waste 
and  desolate  places.  Never  in  the  history  of  the  world  had 
so  mighty  a  rebellion  been  subdued ;  never  had  any  rebel 
lion  been  followed  by  treatment  so  lenient,  forgiving,  and 
generous  on  the  part  of  the  triumphant  government.  The 
great  mass  of  those  who  had  resisted  the  national  authority 
were  restored  to  all  their  rights  of  citizenship  by  the  simple 
taking  of  an  oath  of  future  loyalty,  and  those  excepted  from 
immediate  reinstatement  were  promised  full  forgiveness  on 
the  slightest  exhibition  of  repentance  and  good  works."  And 
this  before  the  ballot  was  given  to  the  colored  people  and 
before  the  nation  was  ripe  for  its  bestowal. 

For  a  clearer  understanding  of  this  matter  it  may  be  well 
to  explain  here  that  there  were  three  distinct  efforts  at 
reconstruction  : 

First :  the  effort  at  reconstruction  during  the  war,  directed 
by  President  Lincoln. 

Second :  the  attempt  at  reconstruction  immediately  after 
the  close  of  the  war,  directed  by  President  Johnson,  who  suc 
ceeded  Lincoln  after  the  latter's  assassination. 

Third :  reconstruction  proper,  when  the  Congress  took 
the  whole  matter  in  hand,  and  not  rashly  or  hastily,  but 
after  serious  and  extended  deliberations,  full  and  free  debates 
in  both  Houses,  and  repeated  endorsements  by  the  people  at' 
elections,  covering  a  period  of  over  five  years  from  the 
adoption  of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution 
to  the  adoption  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  brought  to  a 
righteous  and  irrevocable  settlement  all  of  the  pressing,  com- 

43 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

plex,  and  absorbing  questions  involved  in  the  war,  in  slavery, 
and  in  our  constitutional  government. 

As  indicating  the  easy  stages  and  progression  of  recon 
struction  legislation,  it  may  be  stated  that  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  was  passed  by  the  Congress  January  30. 
l86sL:  the  enlargement  of  the  powers  of  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau,  July,  1865  ;  the  Act  protecting  the  civil  rights  of  the 
colored  people,  April  9,  1866 ;  the  Fourteenth  Amendment, 
June  13,  1866 ;  the  famous  Reconstruction  Act,  March 
2,  1867 ;  and  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  was  ratified  March 
30,  1870. 

We  will  now  consider  these  three  attempts  at  reconstruc 
tion,  in  the  order  named. 

At  the  very  opening  of  hostilities  President  Lincoln 
adopted  the  eminently  sagacious  and  statesmanlike  policy  of 
cultivating,  by  every  possible  means  and  concessions,  the 
friendship  and  loyalty  of  those  slave  states  and  parts  of 
slave  states  bordering  on  the  free  states,  including  Mary 
land,  West  Virginia,  East  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  Missouri. 
By  his  wonderful  tact  and  strategy  he  succeeded  in  hold 
ing  them  from  open  revolt  against  the  Union,  although 
the  great  body  of  their  citizens  sympathized  with  the  Con 
federacy.  This  policy  was  invaluable,  in  that  it  nerved  the 
loyalists  in  the  South,  kept  many  hesitating  ones  in  line, 
brought  valuable  support  to  the  Union  arms,  kept  up 
representation  from  some  of  the  slave  states  in  Congress,  and 
thus  maimed  the  Confederacy.  In  furtherance  of  his  policy 
to  reconstruct  the  seceding  states  so  far  as  possible  and 
encourage  the  loyalists  and  hamper  the  Confederacy,  he 
issued  a  proclamation  to  the  effect  that,  in  any  state  where 
ten  righteous  men  out  of  a  hundred  could  be  found,  —  where 
"  one  tenth  of  the  legal  voters  "  were  loyal  to  the  Union, — 
they  might  reconstruct  and  reorganize  the  state  government, 
and  that  such  government  would  be  recognized.  Military 
commanders  were  instructed,  wherever  feasible,  to  assist 

44 


THE  SOUTHERN  "BLACK  CODE1' 

and    even    to    take    the    initiative    in    reconstructing   such 
governments. 

The  state  of  Virginia  adopted  its  ordinance  of  secession  on 
the  17th  of  April,  1861.  And  in  less  than  a  month  after 
wards,  on  the  13th  of  May,  the  loyalists  of  the  Old  Domin 
ion,  residents  largely  of  the  western  part  of  the  state,  met  at 
Wheeling,  and  "  denounced  the  ordinance  of  secession  and 
pledged  their  loyalty  to  the  national  government  and  their 
obedience  to  its  laws.11  It  was  but  a  little  more  than  a  month 
later  that  a  delegated  convention  met,  reconstructed  the 
state  government  by  the  election  of  the  usual  officers,  and 
senators  and  representatives  were  sent  to  Congress  and  were 
admitted  ;  and  the  reconstructed  government  of  Virginia  was 
recognized  as  the  legal  government  of  the  state.  But  as  the 
loyalists  were  domiciled  almost  entirely  in  the  western  section 
of  the  state  and  had  no  control  or  power  outside  of  that  sec 
tion  —  the  remainder  of  the  state,  and  the  great  body  of  the 
people  being  hopelessly  in  the  Confederacy,  —  the  claim  that 
they  really  represented  the  state  of  Virginia  did  not  seem,  as 
time  went  on,  to  be  wholly  tenable  or  satisfactory.  So  the 
loyalists  went  through  the  usual  form  and  organized  a  new 
state,  and  there  rose  phoenix-like  the  progressive,  prosperous, 
and  rapidly  developing  commonwealth  of  West  Virginia  — 
which  thus  owes  her  existence  as  a  sovereign  state  to  the 
loyalty  of  her  sons  to  the  republic  in  this  great  crisis. 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  Virginia,  the  historic  Old 
Dominion,  in  her  gigantic  efforts  through  her  masterful  Lee, 
her  chivalric  "  Stonewall "  Jackson,  her  redoubtable  Johnson 
and  Johnston,  and  her  fighting  legions,  ever  ready  for  the 
fray,  was  the  most  important  factor  in  the  attempt  to  dis 
member  the  Union  ;  but  she  alone,  of  all  the  states  of  the 
Confederacy,  was  dismembered.  Much  of  the  hardest  fight 
ing  and  wear  and  waste  of  war  was  on  her  soil ;  she  probably 
lost  a  larger  proportion  of  her  sons  ;  and  the  loss  by  the 
"  partition  "  which  carved  out  of  her  territory  the  great  state 

45 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

of  West  Virginia  probably  represents  a  greater  money  value 
to-day  than  was  placed  on  all  the  slaves  in  the  South  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  war.  Is  not  this  an  impressive  retribution  ? 

The  policy  of  reconstruction  under  Lincoln  was  also  ap 
plied  to  Tennessee  with  such  good  recompense  that  one  of 
her  loyal  sons,  Andrew  Johnson,  was  nominated  for  Vice- 
President  by  the  Republican  convention  in  1864.  Efforts  at 
reconstruction  were  also  made  under  his  direction  in  Louisi 
ana,  with  promising  results,  and  in  Arkansas  and  Florida 
with  tentative  though  not  very  substantial  results.  To 
Governor  Hahn  of  the  reconstructed  government  of  Louisiana, 
Lincoln  wrote  in  March,  1864,  advising  that  the  ballot  should 
be  given  to  the  colored  men  :  "  Let  in,  as  for  instance,  the 
very  intelligent,  and  especially  those  who  have  fought  gal 
lantly  in  our  ranks.  They  would  probably  help  in  some  try 
ing  time  in  the  future  to  keep  the  jewel  of  liberty  in  the 
family  of  freedom." 

This  was  probably  the  first  utterance  from  a  responsible 
source  in  favor  of  bestowing  the  ballot  on  the  colored  people 
of  the  South.  It  shows  to  splendid  advantage  Lincoln's  great 
and  noble  heart.  For  the  war  was  still  in  progress  and  des 
tined  to  last,  no  one  knew  how  long.  It  did  continue  for 
over  a  year  longer.  Lincoln's  renomination  and  re-election 
were  hanging  in  the  balance.  Serious  reverses  in  the  field 
might  have  defeated  either  or  both.  He  was  far  in  advance 
of  the  public  opinion  of  the  nation.  For  at  this  time  it  was 
not  at  all  likely  that  a  single  Northern  state  could  have  been 
carried  on  the  simple  question  of  negro  suffrage.  Yet  he 
plainly,  positively,  unmistakably  indicated  suffrage  for  the 
colored  man  as  a  part  of  his  policy  in  reconstructing  the 
Southern  states.  His  generous  nature,  his  great  and  noble 
heart,  would  have  it  known  that  the  colored  men  "  who  have 
fought  gallantly  in  our  ranks "  can  be  trusted  to  "  help  in 
some  trying  time  in  the  future  to  keep  the  jewel  of  liberty  in 
the  family  of  freedom.11 

46 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

These  words  of  Lincoln  are  dwelt  upon  because  they  are  of 
deep  significance  and  add  to  our  opinion  of  his  greatness,  his 
fame,  when  it  is  considered  that  the  validity  of  the  Emanci 
pation  Proclamation  was  at  that  time  a  much  debated  ques 
tion.  Many  strong  and  learned  loyal  men  in  the  North 
doubted  the  legal  right  or  power  of  the  President  alone,  even 
as  a  war  measure,  to  destroy  or  confiscate  property  by  pro 
clamation,  especially  when  that  property  was  beyond  the 
control  of  the  government.  The  slaves  were  at  that  time 
property  ;  they  were  also,  with  unimportant  exceptions,  with 
in  the  bounds  of  the  Confederacy  and  beyond  the  control  of 
the  government.  Could  the  President  alone,  by  mere  proc 
lamation,  legally  destroy  and  confiscate  property  which  his 
government  did  not  possess  ?  Would  Congress,  the  people, 
and  the  Supreme  Court  finally  sustain  him  ? 

This  question,  pressed  by  influential  sources  in  the  North, 
weighed  heavily  on  Lincoln.  But  he  was  equal  to  this,  as 
he  was  to  every  emergency  in  the  greatest  conflict  in  history. 
He  found  strength  and  comfort  in  the  "higher  law"  that 
"  the  negro  was  a  man,  and  that  no  man  was  good  enough  to 
own  another  man  and  appropriate  the  fruits  of  his  labor." 
And  there  was  the  feeling  "that  slavery  drew  the  sword 
against  the  nation  and  that  it  should  perish  by  the  sword." 
To  the  realization  of  this  "  higher  law "  he  hoped  to  bring 
the  nation. 

So  important  and  pressing  was  this  question  that  Lincoln 
dealt  with  it  in  his  message  to  the  Congress  in  December, 
1864.  In  this  message  the  President  said  :  "  While  I  remain 
in  my  present  position  I  shall  not  attempt  to  retract  or 
modify  the  Emancipation  Proclamation.  Nor  shall  I  return 
to  slavery  any  person  who  is  free  by  the  terms  of  that  Proc 
lamation  or  by  any  of  the  Acts  of  Congress.  If  the  people 
should,  by  whatever  mode  or  means,  make  it  an  executive 
duty  to  re-enslave  such  persons,  another,  and  not  I,  must  be 
their  instrument  to  perform  it." 

47 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Here  is  more  than  a  veiled  threat,  it  is  an  open  defiance. 
Lincoln  had  just  been  re-elected  to  the  presidency  in  No 
vember,  a  month  before  the  message  was  sent  to  Congress; 
and  he  distinctly  tells  Congress  and  the  people  that  he  would 
give  up  the  presidency  rather  than  relinquish  the  principles 
of  his  Emancipation  Proclamation  ;  that  he  would  resign  his 
office  rather  than  "  return  to  slavery  any  person  who  is  free 
by  the  terms  of  that  proclamation  or  by  any  of  the  Acts  of 
Congress.1'1 

Up  to  this  date  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  the  only 
charter  of  liberty  for  the  colored  people  in  the  South ;  and 
the  all-important  point  is,  that  Lincoln  regarded  this  as  suffi 
cient  to  enable  the  negroes  to  wear  the  uniform  of  a  United 
States  soldier,  to  be  commissioned  as  officers,  to  be  treated 
the  same  as  white  soldiers,  to  be  protected  as  prisoners  of 
war,  to  have  common  rights,  and  to  vote  at  the  ballot-box. 

President  Lincoln's  deep  solicitude  for  the  colored  soldiers, 
his  profound  interest  in  them,  his  unqualified  respect  for  and 
appreciation  of  their  invaluable  services,  and  his  determina 
tion  that  they  should  receive  their  full  mete  of  justice,  are 
made  manifest  in  his  state  papers,  public  addresses  and  letters. 
In  his  message  to  Congress  in  December,  1863,  less  than  a 
year  after  the  first  enlistment  of  colored  soldiers,  he  said : 
"  Full  one  hundred  thousand  of  them  are  now  in  the  United 
States  military  service,  about  one  half  of  which  number  actu 
ally  bear  arms  in  the  ranks,  thus  giving  the  double  advantage 
—  of  taking  so  much  labor  from  the  insurgents1  cause  and 
supplying  the  places  which  otherwise  might  be  filled  with 
so  many  white  men."  In  a  speech  at  Baltimore,  April  18, 
1864,  he  said  :  "  Upon  a  clear  conviction  of  duty,  I  resolved 
to  turn  that  element  of  strength  to  account ;  and  I  am  re 
sponsible  for  it  to  the  American  people,  to  the  Christian 
world,  to  history,  and  on  my  final  account  to  God.  Having 
determined  to  use  the  negro  as  a  soldier,  there  is  no  way  but 
to  give  him  all  the  protection  given  to  any  other  soldier." 

48 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

In  a  letter  of  April  4,  1864,  he  says  :  "  More  than  a  year 
of  trial  now  shows  no  loss  by  it  in  our  foreign  relations,  none 
in  our  home  popular  sentiment,  none  in  our  white  military 
force,  —  no  loss  by  it  anyhow  or  anywhere.  On  the  contrary, 
it  shows  a  gain  of  quite  a  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  sol 
diers,  seamen,  and  laborers.  These  are  palpable  facts,  about 
which,  as  facts,  there  can  be  no  cavilling.  We  have  the  men, 
and  we  could  not  have  them  without  the  measure,'1  —  meaning 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation.  At  a  public  meeting  in 
Baltimore  he  said  :  "  The  black  soldier  shall  have  the  same 
protection  as  the  white  soldier.1'' 

He  threatened  retaliation,  should  the  Confederates  shoot 
black  soldiers  when  captured,  instead  of  treating  them  as 
prisoners  of  war.  He  refused  to  exchange  a  single  Confed 
erate  soldier  until  colored  soldiers  were  recognized  by  the 
Confederate  government.  Again,  in  a  public  address  he  de 
clared  :  "  Negroes,  like  other  people,  act  from  motives.  Why 
should  they  do  anything  for  us,  if  we  do  nothing  for  them  ? 
If  they  stake  their  lives  for  us,  they  must  be  prompted  by 
the  strongest  of  motives,  even  the  promise  of  freedom.  And 
the  promise,  being  made,  must  be  kept.11 

In  a  general  order,  issued  July  30,  1863,  Lincoln  said: 
"It  is  the  duty  of  every  government  to  give  protection  to  its 
citizens,  of  whatever  class  or  color  or  condition,  and  especially 
to  those  who  are  duly  organized  as  soldiers  in  the  public  ser 
vice.  .  .  .  The  government  of  the  United  States  will  give  the 
same  protection  to  all  its  soldiers  ;  and  if  the  enemy  shall  sell 
or  enslave  any  one  because  of  his  color,  the  offence  shall  be 
punished  by  retaliation  upon  the  enemy^  prisoners  in  our  pos 
session.  It  is  therefore  ordered  that  for  every  soldier  of  the 
United  States  killed  in  violation  of  the  laws  of  war,  a  rebel 
soldier  shall  be  executed ;  and  for  every  one  enslaved  by  the 
enemy,  a  rebel  soldier  shall  be  placed  at  hard  labor  on  the 
public  works.11 

In  defence  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  in  a  letter, 
4  49 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

August  26,  1863,  he  said :  "  You  are  dissatisfied  with  me 
about  the  negro.  Quite  likely  there  is  a  difference  of  opin 
ion  between  you  and  myself  upon  that  subject.  I  certainly 
wish  that  all  men  could  be  free.  .  .  .  You  dislike  the  Eman 
cipation  Proclamation.  .  .  .  You  say  it  is  unconstitutional. 
I  think  differently ;  I  think  the  Constitution  invests  its  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  with  law  of  war  in  time  of  war.  .  .  .  The 
slaves  are  property ;  ...  by  the  law  of  war  property,  both 
of  the  enemies  and  friends,  may  be  taken  when  needed. 
Armies,  the  world  over,  destroy  enemies1  property  when  they 
cannot  use  it,  and  even  destroy  their  own  to  keep  it  from  the 
enemy.  .  .  .  But  the  Proclamation,  as  law,  either  is  valid  or 
is  not  valid.  If  it  is  not  valid,  it  needs  no  retraction.  If  it 
is  valid,  it  cannot  be  retracted,  any  more  than  the  dead  can 
be  brought  to  life.  .  .  .  The  Emancipation  policy  and  the 
use  of  colored  troops  constitute  the  heaviest  blows  yet  dealt 
to  the  Rebellion."  / 

Replying  to  an  address  from  the  workingmen  of  Man 
chester  and  London,  England,  who  wished  him  success  in 
conquering  the  rebellion,  as  by  it  slavery  would  be  destroyed, 
and  indicated  their  willingness  to  bear  with  patience  all  pri 
vations  and  sufferings,  —  for  not  only  great  hardships  but  even 
starvation  faced  many  in  England,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the 
blockade  of  Southern  ports  prevented  the  shipment  of  cot 
ton,  —  Lincoln  said  :  "  It  has  been  often  ostentatiously  rep 
resented  that  the  attempt  to  overthrow  this  government, 
which  was  built  upon  the  foundation  of  human  rights,  and  to 
substitute  for  it  one  which  should  rest  exclusively  on  the 
basis  of  human  slavery,  was  likely  to  obtain  favor  in  Europe. 
I  cannot  but  regard  your  decisive  utterance  upon  the  ques 
tion  as  an  instance  of  sublime  Christian  heroism,  which  has 
not  been  surpassed  in  any  age  or  country.  It  is  indeed  an 
energetic  and  reinspiring  assurance  of  the  inherent  power  of 
truth  and  the  universal  triumph  of  justice,  humanity,  and 
freedom." 

50 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE11 

To  a  Western  delegation  he  said  :  "  There  are  now  in  the 
service  of  the  United  States  nearly  200,000  able-bodied  colored 
men,  most  of  them  under  arms  defending  and  acquiring  Union 
territory.  The  Democratic  strategy  demands  that  those  forces 
be  disbanded,  and  that  the  masters  be  conciliated  by  restor 
ing  them  to  slavery.  The  black  men  who  now  assist  Union 
prisoners  to  escape  are  to  be  converted  into  our  enemies  in 
the  vain  hope  of  gaining  the  good-will  of  their  masters.  .  .  . 
Abandon  all  the  forts  now  garrisoned  by  black  men  ;  take 
200,000  from  our  side  and  put  them  in  the  battle-field  or 
corn-field  against  us,  and  we  would  be  compelled  to  abandon 
the  war  in  three  weeks.  We  have  to  hold  territory  in  sickly 
places.  .  .  .  There  have  been  men  base  enough  to  propose 
to  me  to  return  to  slavery  our  black  warriors  of  Port  Hudson 
and  Olustee,  and  thus  win  the  respect  of  the  masters  they 
fought.  .  .  .  Come  what  will,  I  will  keep  faith  with  friend 
and  enemy.  .  .  .  Freedom  has  given  us  200,000  men  raised 
on  Southern  soil.  It  will  give  us  more  yet.  Just  so  much  it 
has  abstracted  from  the  enemy." 

To  a  colored  delegation  at  Baltimore,  presenting  him  with 
a  handsomely  bound  copy  of  the  Bible,  he  said  :  "  I  can  only 
say  now,  as  I  have  often  said  before,  it  has  always  been  a 
sentiment  with  me  that  all  mankind  should  be  free.  ...  I 
have  always  acted  as  I  believed  was  just  and  right,  and  done 
all  I  could  for  the  good  of  mankind.  ...  In  regard  to  the 
great  Book,  I  have  only  to  say,  it  is  the  best  gift  which  God 
has  ever  given  to  man.  All  the  good  of  the  Saviour  of  the 
world  is  communicated  to  us  through  this  Book.  .  .  .  All 
those  things  desirable  to  men  are  contained  in  it." 

In  his  inaugural  address,  March,  1865,  President  Lincoln 
said  :  "  These  slaves  constitute  a  peculiar  and  powerful  inter 
est.  ...  To  strengthen,  perpetuate,  and  extend  this  interest 
was  the  object  for  which  the  insurgents  would  rend  the  Union 
by  war.  ...  It  may  seem  strange  that  any  men  should  dare 
to  ask  a  just  God's  assistance  in  wringing  their  bread  from 

51 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces.  .  .  .  Fondly  do  we  hope,  fer 
vently  do  we  pray  that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may 
speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God  wills  that  it  continue 
until  .  .  .  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be 
paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was  said  three 
thousand  years  ago,  so,  still,  it  must  be  said  that  '  the  judg 
ments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether.1  n 

A  fact  of  considerable  interest  is  that  the  Confederate 
leaders,  who  dragged  the  South  into  secession  with  the  al 
leged  purpose  of  establishing  a  government  whose  very  foun 
dation-stone  should  be  human  slavery,  should  themselves 
have  turned  their  eyes  to  these  very  enslaved  negroes  to  save 
their  cause.  They  were  ever  ready  to  use  the  negro  for  their 
selfish  ends. 

The  Honorable  Judah  P.  Benjamin,  Secretary  of  State  for 
the  Confederacy,  in  a  public  speech  at  Richmond,  advocating 
the  arming  of  the  negroes,  said  :  "  There  are  700,000  males 
among  the  slave  population  capable  of  bearing  arms  —  set 
them  free  and  arm  them  and  let  them  fight  the  Yankees." 
On  the  recommendation  of  General  Lee  and  President  Davis 
of  the  Confederacy,  a  bill  to  arm  the  slaves  passed  one  House 
of  the  Confederate  Congress,  and  lacked  only  one  vote  of 
passing  the  other  House.  Nevertheless,  this  same  Confed 
erate  Congress  actually  passed  a  law  to  shoot  white  union 
officers  commanding  colored  soldiers,  and  shoot  colored 
soldiers  when  captured. 

President  Lincoln,  in  a  public  address  in  Washington, 
true  to  that  humor  and  irony  characteristic  of  him,  said  : 
"  As  they  need  only  one  vote,  I  would  be  glad  to  send  my 
vote  through  the  lines  to  help  them  out.11  He  felt  that 
they  would  certainly  have  so  many  more  soldiers  shooting 
at  them.  The  well-grounded  fear  that  the  armed  negroes 
would  desert  to  the  Union  side  defeated  the  measure.  But 
if  these  700,000  slaves  had  been  thrown  into  the  breach  on 
the  Confederate  side,  and  had  fought  loyally,  under  promise 

52 


THE    SOUTHERN   "BLACK    CODE11 

of  freedom,  it  does  not  seem  possible  that  the  Union  could 
have  been  saved.  But  it  was  not  to  be  so.  God  was 
leading  on  ! 

The  feeling  of  love,  gratitude,  and  reverence  engendered 
towards  President  Lincoln  by  his  championing  of  the  negro 
cause  is  shown  by  the  following  incident.  The  Confederate 
government  had  scarcely  evacuated  Richmond  before  Lincoln, 
unheralded  and  unannounced,  and  accompanied  by  his  young 
son  and  Admiral  Porter,  besides  a  few  sailors  from  a  man-of- 
war,  entered  the  city  and  "  like  any  other  citizen,  walked  up  the 
streets  towards  General  WeitzePs  headquarters,  in  the  house 
occupied  two  days  before  by  Jefferson  Davis.11  The  Atlantic 
Monthly  thus  describes  the  scene  of  the  colored  people  coming 
from  all  sides  to  see  their  deliverer  :  "  They  gathered  round 
the  President,  ran  ahead,  hovered  upon  the  flanks  of  the  little 
company,  and  hung  like  a  dark  cloud  upon  the  rear.  Men, 
women,  and  children,  joined  the  constantly  increasing  throng. 
They  came  from  all  the  by-streets,  running  in  breathless 
haste,  shouting  and  hallooing  and  dancing  with  delight. 
The  men  threw  up  their  hats,  the  women  waved  their 
bonnets  and  handkerchiefs,  clapped  their  hands  and  sang 
4  Glory  to  God !  Glory  !  Glory  ! 1  rendering  all  the  praise 
to  God,  who  had  heard  their  wailings  in  the  past,  their 
moanings  for  wives,  husbands,  children,  and  friends,  sold 
out  of  their  sight ;  had  given  them  freedom,  and  after  long 
years  of  waiting,  had  permitted  them  thus  unexpectedly 
to  behold  the  face  of  their  great  benefactor.  '  I  thank 
yon,  dear  Jesus,  that  I  behold  President  Linkum ! '  was 
the  exclamation  of  a  woman  who  stood  upon  the  thresh 
old  of  her  humble  home,  and  with  streaming  eyes  and 
clasped  hands  gave  thanks  aloud  to  the  Saviour  of  men. 
Another,  more  demonstrative  in  her  joy,  was  jumping  and 
striking  her  hands  with  all  her  might,  crying  '  Bless  de 
Lord !  Bless  de  Lord  ! "  as  if  there  could  be  no  end  to  the 
thanksgiving. 

53 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"  The  air  rang  with  a  tumultuous  chorus  of  voices.  The 
street  became  almost  impassable  on  account  of  the  increasing 
multitude,  till  soldiers  were  summoned  to  clear  the  way.  .  .  . 
The  walk  was  long,  and  the  President  halted  a  moment  to 
rest.  '  May  de  good  Lord  bless  you,  President  Linkum  ! ' 
said  an  old  negro,  removing  his  hat  and  bowing,  with  tears 
of  joy  rolling  down  his  cheeks.  The  President  removed  his 
own  hat  and  bowed  in  silence ;  but  it  was  a  bow  which  upset 
the  forms,  laws,  customs,  and  ceremonies  of  centuries.  It 
was  a  death-shock  to  chivalry,  and  a  mortal  wound  to  caste. 
'  Recognize  a  nigger  !  Faugh  ! '  A  woman  in  an  adjoining 
house  beheld  it,  and  turned  from  the  scene  in  unspeakable 
digust." 

From  this  scene  Lincoln  returned  to  Washington,  and  on 
the  llth  of  April,  1865,  just  four  days  before  his  death,  and 
two  days  after  General  Lee^s  surrender,  he  made  his  last 
public  address,  favoring,  as  a  start  in  the  right  direction, 
the  reconstructed  government  which  the  loyalists  had  organ- 
i/ed  in  Louisiana,  abolishing  slavery,  adopting  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment,  providing  schools  for  black  and  white  alike, 
and  providing  for  the  franchise  for  the  colored  people. 

In  a  letter  April  4  he  said :  "  I  am  naturally  anti- 
slavery.  If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  then  nothing  is  wrong.  .  .  . 
I  was,  in  my  best  judgment,  driven  to  the  alternative  of 
either  surrendering  the  Union  and  with  it  the  Constitution, 
or  of  laying  strong  hands  upon  the  colored  element.  I 
chose  the  latter."  And  the  colored  element  did  respond 
with  great  heartiness,  and  answering  President  Lincoln's 
call,  they  joyfully  sang:  — 

"  We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham, 
Two  hundred  thousand  strong." 

If  Lincoln  was  willing,  as  he  proved  to  be,  to  use  the 
great  power  of  the  United  States  government  to  guarantee 
that  "  the  black  soldier  should  have  the  same  protection  as 

54 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

the  white  soldier,*"  then  it  defames  his  hallowed  memory, 
and  libels  his  nobility  of  heart  to  insinuate  that  he  would 
not  use  the  same  powers  to  guarantee  to  the  black  citizen 
the  same  protection  under  the  law  as  the  white  citizen.  To 
him  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  meant  freedom  for  the 
colored  people  ;  and  freedom  meant  citizenship  ;  and  citizen 
ship  the  ballot. 

In  his  general  order  issued  July  30,  1863,  President  Lin 
coln  said  :  "  It  is  the  duty  of  every  government  to  give 
protection  to  its  citizens,  of  whatever  class  or  color  or 
condition.'" 

In  this  general  order,  officially  promulgated,  he  made 
direct  intervention  in  behalf  of  colored  men,  and  secured 
their  protection  by  the  exercise  of  governmental  sovereignty 
in  obliterating  class  distinctions.  On  this  question  his  record 
is  unmistakably  clear.  Sad,  sudden,  unexpected,  and  over 
whelming  as  was  the  death  of  Lincoln,  there  were  two  events 
which  immediately  preceded  it  that  must  have  been  of 
supreme  satisfaction  and  happiness  to  him..  There  were  two 
overmastering  emotions  in  his  heart :  one  was  to  see  the 
Union  saved,  and  its  supremacy  made  sure  forevermore  ;  the 
other  was  to  see  slavery  dead,  and  dead  beyond  a  resurrection. 

The  God  in  whom  he  believed,  whom  he  trusted,  to  whom 
he  prayed,  who  sustained  and  led  him  "  amid  the  encircling 
gloom  "  when  he  was  weighted  down  to  the  earth  with  bur 
dens  greater  than  it  seemed  possible  that  man  could  bear, 
was  merciful,  gracious,  and  kind  unto  him.  His  eyes  beheld 
the  salvation  of  his  country  !  He  saw  the  imperious,  cruel, 
slaveholding  oligarchy,  which  drew  the  sword  against  the 
nation,  totter  to  its  ruin ;  its  dreams  of  an  empire  on 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  shattered  and  buried  in  the  dust ;  the 
Union  saved. 

He  signed  the  death-warrant  of  slavery,  which  was  em 
bodied  in  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  and  passed  by  the  necessary  two-thirds 

55 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

vote  of  both  Houses  of  Congress  :  "  Neither  slavery,  nor 
involuntary  servitude,  except  as  a  punishment  for  crime, 
whereof  the  party  shall  have  been  duly  convicted,  shall  exist 
in  the  United  States,  or  any  place  subject  to  their  juris 
diction."  '  The  final  passage  of  this  amendment,  probably 
the  most  momentous  legislative  Act  passed  up  to  that  time 
in  the  whole  history  of  the  American  Congress,  was  not  re 
ceived  in  the  rancor  of  party-spirit,  nor  with  the  huzzas  of 
partisan  triumph,  but  on  the  contrary  with  most  profound, 
aye,  holy  emotions.  Mr.  Ingersoll  of  Illinois  said  :  "  Mr. 
Speaker,  in  honor  of  this  immortal  and  sublime  event,  I 
move  that  this  House  do  now  adjourn." 

Mr.  Blaine  said  :  "  The  action  was  of  transcendent  impor 
tance —  lofty  in  conception,  masterful  in  execution.  Slavery 
in  the  United  States  was  dead.  To  succeeding  and  not  dis 
tant  generations  its  existence  in  a  republic  for  three-quarters 
of  a  century,  the  duration  of  the  organized  government  of 
the  United  States  up  to  that  time,  will  be  an  increasing 
marvel." 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  was  waited  upon  to  be  apprised  of  its 
passage,  and  was  congratulated,  he  said :  "  In  the  midst  of 
your  joyous  expressions,  He  'from  whom  all  blessings  flow1 
must  first  be  remembered."  Here  is  a  true  exhibition  of 
the  real  spirit  of  the  man  ;  his  eyes  beheld  salvation  for  the 
negro;  the  salvation  of  a  race  from  a  bondage  of  despair, 
black,  bitter,  brutal ;  slavery  dead  and  entombed  —  and  he  the 
master  of  the  ceremonies.  His  joy  was  full,  complete.  So 
ever  shall  he  wear  the  "  crown,  a  martyr's  diadem,  his  jewels 
millions  of  ransomed  slaves." 


Still  strong  he  stood  among  the  crowd, 

His  head  above  the  clamor  loud, 

Unmoved  by  trial  or  dismay, 

The  sunshine  on  his  face  alway. 

Like  some  firm  cliff  that  guards  the  strand, 

So  Lincoln  stood  to  save  the  land." 

56 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

With  the  elevation  of  Andrew  Johnson  to  the  presidency 
after  the  death  of  Lincoln,  there  began  the  second  effort 
at  reconstruction.  General  Lee  surrendered  at  Appomat- 
tox,  April  9,  1865.  President  Lincoln,  «  the  beloved  of  all 
hearts,""  expired  on  the  15th  of  the  same  month;  Mr.  John 
son  took  the  oath  of  office  just  a  few  hours  after  Lincoln's 
death. 

It  was  on  the  29th  day  of  May,  1865,  that  President  John 
son  issued  his  Proclamation  of  Amnesty  and  Pardon  to  all 
who  took  part  in  the  Rebellion,  except  the  few  thousands 
who  held  high  official  positions  in  the  civil,  military,  or  diplo 
matic  service  of  the  United  States  at  the  breaking  out  of 
the  war,  or  held  similar  positions  in  the  Confederacy;  but 
providing  that  such  persons  may  receive  full  pardon  by 
applying  for  the  same  to  the  President.  Thus  the  rank  and 
file  of  Southerners  were  let  in,  and  the  door  kept  ajar  for  the 
exceptions.  The  conditions  imposed  on  the  white  people 
of  the  South  were  that  they  would  henceforth  "  faithfully 
support,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  and  the  Union  of  the  States  thereunder  ;  abide  by  and 
faithfully  support  all  laws  and  proclamations  which  have 
been  made  during  the  existing  Rebellion  with  reference  to 
the  emancipation  of  slaves."  Could  there  have  been  greater 
magnanimity,  wiser  generosity  to  the  white  people  of  the 
South  ? 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation  had  been  endorsed  and 
confirmed  by  an  overwhelming  vote  of  the  people  of  the 
loyal  states,  and  by  the  sweeping  and  triumphant  re-election 
of  Lincoln  in  the  preceding  November. 

The  Thirteenth  Amendment  had  passed  both  Houses  of 
Congress  by  more  than  the  necessary  two-thirds  vote,  and  had 
been  signed  by  President  Lincoln.  The  white  people  of  the 
South  were  commissioned  to  reconstruct  the  seceding  states 
and  bring  them  back  into  their  proper  and  normal  relations 
with  the  Union.  They  were  given  an  absolutely  free  hand ; 

57 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

their  oath  bound  them  to  respect  the  changed  conditions 
"with  reference  to  the  emancipation  of  slaves."  But  how 
did  they  use  this  high  prerogative,  this  unfettered  power,  so 
graciously  restored  to  their  hands  ?  They  held,  with  light 
ning-like  rapidity,  state  conventions,  and  their  legislatures, 
composed  entirely  of  ex-Confederates,  were  summoned  in 
special  sessions,  within  a  few  months  immediately  following 
the  war;  and  they  proceeded  forthwith  to  enact  a  Black 
Code  of  Laws,  with  reference  to  the  colored  people  who  were 
emancipated,  and  whose  emancipation  their  Amnesty  oath 
bound  them  to  respect,  that  is  the  scandal  and  shame  of 
civilization.  Not  a  single  right  dear  to  a  freeman  did  these 
men  respect,  "  with  reference  to  the  emancipation  of  slaves."" 
Not  a  single  law  or  proclamation  did  they  honestly  observe. 
These  men,  in  the  language  of  one  of  old,  practically  said  to 
the  colored  people :  "  My  little  finger  shall  be  thicker  than 
my  father's  loins.  For  whereas  my  father  put  a  heavy  yoke 
upon  you,  I  will  put  more  to  your  yoke ;  my  father  chastised 
you  with  whips,  but  I  will  chastise  you  with  scorpions."" 

We  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  the  specific  points  in 
this  code  of  laws  that  the  Southern  whites  considered  proper 
for  the  government  of  the  emancipated  negro. 

Mr.  Blaine,  in  his  "  Twenty  Years  of  Congress,"  gives  such 
a  masterly  review  of  the  Black  Code  of  Laws  passed  by 
Southern  legislatures  after  President  Johnson's  Amnesty 
Proclamation  and  when  the  ex- Confederates  had  unfettered 
power  to  reconstruct  the  Southern  states,  that  it  is  repro 
duced  here,  as  follows : 

"  That  which  was  no  offence  in  a  white  man  was  made  a 
misdemeanor,  a  heinous  crime,  if  committed  by  a  negro. 
Both  in  the  civil  and  criminal  code  his  treatment  was  differ 
ent  from  that  to  which  the  white  man  was  subjected.  He 
was  compelled  to  work  under  a  series  of  labor  laws  appli 
cable  only  to  his  own  race.  The  laws  of  vagrancy  were 
so  changed  as,  in  many  of  their  provisions,  to  apply  only 

58 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

to  him,  and  under  their  operation  all  freedom  of  movement 
and  transit  was  denied.  The  liberty  to  sell  his  time  at 
a  fair  market  rate  was  destroyed  by  the  interposition  of 
apprentice  laws.  Avenues  of  usefulness  and  skill  in  which 
he  might  specially  excel,  were  closed  against  him,  lest  he 
should  compete  with  white  men.  In  short,  his  liberty  in  all 
directions  was  so  curtailed  that  it  was  a  bitter  mockery  to 
refer  to  him  in  the  statutes  as  a  4  freedman.'  The  truth  was 
that  his  liberty  was  merely  of  form  and  not  of  fact,  and  the 
slavery  which  was  abolished  by  the  organic  law  of  a  nation 
was  now  to  be  revived  by  the  enactment  of  a  state. 

"  Some  of  these  enactments  were  peculiarly  offensive,  not 
to  say  atrocious.  In  Alabama,  which  might  indeed  serve  as 
an  example  for  the  other  rebellious  states,  '  stubborn  or  re 
fractory  servants '  and  '  servants  who  loiter  away  their  time  ' 
were  declared  by  law  to  be  c  vagrants,'  and  might  be  brought 
before  a  justice  of  the  peace  and  fined  fifty  dollars;  and  in 
default  of  payment,  they  might  be  '  hired  out,1  on  three  days' 
notice  by  public  outcry,  for  the  period  of  4  six  months.'  No 
fair  man  could  fail  to  see  that  the  whole  effect,  and  presum 
ably  the  direct  intent,  of  this  law  was  to  reduce  the  helpless 
negro  to  slavery  for  half  the  year  —  a  punishment  that  could 
be  repeated  whenever  desired,  a  punishment  sure  to  be  desired 
for  that  portion  of  each  recurring  year  when  his  labor  was 
specially  valuable  in  connection  with  the  cotton  crop,  while 
for  the  remainder  of  the  time  he  might  shift  for  himself. 
By  this  detestable  process,  the  '  master '  had  the  labor  of 
the  '  servant '  for  a  mere  pittance  ;  and  even  that  pittance 
did  not  go  to  the  servant,  but  was  paid  into  the  treasury 
of  the  county,  and  thus  relieved  the  white  men  from  their 
proper  share  of  taxation.  There  may  have  been  more  cruel 
laws  enacted,  but  the  statute  books  of  the  world  might  be 
searched  in  vain  for  one  of  meaner  injustice. 

"  The  foregoing,  a  process  for  restoring  slavery  in  a  modi 
fied  form,  was  applicable  to  men  or  women  of  any  age.  But 

59 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

for  '  minors '  a  more  speedy  and  more  sweeping  method  was 
contrived  by  the  law-makers  of  Alabama,  who  had  just  given 
their  assent  to  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitu 
tion.  They  made  it  the  'duty  of  all  sheriffs,  justices  of  the 
peace,  and  other  civil  officers  of  the  several  counties,' to  report 
the  'names  of  all  minors  under  the  age  of  eighteen  years, 
whose  parents  have  not  the  means,  or  who  refuse  to  support 
said  minors,'  and  thereupon  it  was  made  the  duty  of  the 
Court  to  '  apprentice  said  minor  to  some  suitable  person,  on 
such  terms  as  the  Court  may  direct.1  Then  follows  a  sug 
gestive  proviso,  directing  that  '  if  said  minor  be  the  child  of 
a  freedman '  (as  if  any  other  class  were  really  referred  to !), 
'  the  f owner  owner  of  said  minor  shall  have  the  preference ' ; 
and  'the  judge  of  probate  shall  make  a  record  of  all  the 
proceedings,'  for  which  he  should  be  entitled  to  a  fee  of  one 
dollar  in  each  case,  to  be  paid,  as  this  atrocious  law  directed, 
by  '  the  master  or  mistress.'  To  tighten  the  grasp  of  owner 
ship  on  the  minor,  who  was  now  styled  an  apprentice,  it  was 
enacted  in  almost  the  precise  phrase  of  the  old  slave  code 
that  '  whoever  shall  entice  said  apprentice  from  his  master 
or  mistress,  or  furnish  food  or  clothing  to  him  or  her,  with 
out  said  consent,  shall  be  fined  in  a  sum  not  exceeding  five 
hundred  dollars.' 

"  The  ingenuity  of  Alabama  legislators  in  contriving 
schemes  to  re-enslave  the  negroes  was  not  exhausted  by  the 
odious  and  comprehensive  statutes  already  cited.  They  passed 
an  act  to  incorporate  the  city  of  Mobile,  substituting  a  new 
charter  for  the  old  one.  The  city  had  suffered  much  from 
the  suspension  and  decay  of  trade  during  the  war,  and  it 
was  in  great  need  of  labor  to  make  repairs  to  streets,  culverts, 
sewers,  wharves,  and  all  other  public  property.  By  the  new 
charter,  the  mayor,  aldermen,  and  common  council  were  em 
powered  ' to  cause  all  vagrants,'  .  .  .  'all  such  as  have  no 
visible  means  of  support,'  .  .  .  'all  who  can  show  no  reason 
able  cause  of  employment  or  business  in  the  city,'  .  .  .  'all 

60 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

who  have  no  fixed  residence  or  cannot  give  a  good  account 
of  themselves,1  .  .  .  '  or  are  loitering  in  or  about  tippling 
houses,1  .  .  .  '  to  give  security  for  their  good  behavior  for  a 
reasonable  time  and  to  indemnify  the  city  against  any  charge 
for  their  support,  and  in  case  of  their  inability  or  refusal  to 
give  such  security,  to  cause  them  to  be  confined  to  labor  for 
a  limited  time,  not  exceeding  six  calendar  months,  which  said 
labor  shall  be  designated  by  the  said  mayor,  aldermen,  and 
common  council,  for  the  benefit  of  said  city.1 

"  It  will  be  observed  even  by  the  least  intelligent  that  the 
charge  made  in  this  city  ordinance  was,  in  substance,  the 
poverty  of  the  classes  quoted  —  a  poverty  which  was  of  course 
the  inevitable  result  of  slavery.  To  make  the  punishment 
for  no  crime  effective,  the  city  government  was  empowered 
4  to  appoint  a  person  or  persons  to  take  those  sentenced  to 
labor  from  their  place  of  confinement  to  the  place  ap 
pointed  for  their  working,  and  to  watch  them  while  at  labor 
and  return  them  before  sundown  to  their  place  of  confine 
ment  ;  and,  if  they  shall  be  found  afterwards  offending,  such 
security  may  again  be  required,  and  for  want  thereof  the  like 
proceeding  may  again  be  had  from  time  to  time,  as  often  as  may 
be  necessary.'  The  plain  meaning  of  all  this  was,  that  these 
helpless  and  ignorant  men,  having  been  robbed  all  their  lives 
of  the  fruit  of  their  labor  by  slavery,  and  being  necessarily 
and  in  consequence  poor,  must  be  punished  for  it  by  being 
robbed  again  of  all  they  had  honestly  earned.  If  they  stub 
bornly  continued  in  their  poverty,  the  like  proceeding  (of 
depriving  them  of  the  fruit  of  their  labor)  4  may  again  be 
had  from  time  to  time,  as  often  as  may  be  necessary.1  It 
would,  of  course,  be  found  '  necessary,1  just  so  long  as  the  city 
of  Mobile  was  in  need  of  their  labor  without  paying  for  it. 

"It  has  been  abundantly  substantiated,  by  impartial  evi 
dence,  that  when  these  grievous  outrages  were  committed, 
under  the  forms  of  law,  by  the  joint  authority  of  the  Ala 
bama  legislature  and  the  city  government  of  Mobile,  the 

61 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

labor  of  thousands  of  willing  men  could  be  hired  for  the  low 
wages  of  twenty-five  cents  per  day,  with  an  allowance  of  a 
peck  of  corn  meal  and  four  pounds  of  bacon  for  each  man 
per  week.  It  does  not  change  the  character  of  the  crime 
against  these  humble  laborers,  but  it  certainly  enhances  its 
degree  that  the  law-makers  of  Alabama  preferred  an  oppres 
sive  fraud  to  the  honest  payment  of  a  consideration  so  small 
as  to  be  almost  nominal.  A  man  must  be  in  abject  poverty 
when  he  is  willing  to  work  an  entire  week  for  a  sum  usually 
accorded  in  the  Northern  states  for  the  labor  of  one  day. 
But  only  a  community  blind  to  public  justice  and  to  public 
decency  as  well  could  enact  a  ]aw  that  in  effect  declares  the 
poverty  of  the  laborer  to  be  a  crime,  in  consideration  of 
which  he  shall  be  deprived  of  the  beggarly  mite  for  which  he 
is  willing  to  give  the  sweat  of  his  face. 

"  Apparently  fearing  that  the  operations  of  the  law  already 
referred  to  would  not  secure  a  sufficient  number  of  laborers 
for  the  work  required  in  the  city,  the  law-makers  of  Alabama 
authorized  the  municipal  government  of  Mobile  to  'restrain 
and  prohibit  the  nightly  and  other  meetings  or  disorderly 
assemblies  of  all  persons,  and  to  punish  for  such  offences  by 
affixing  penalties  not  exceeding  fifty  dollars  for  any  one 
offence ;  and  in  case  of  the  inability  of  any  such  person  to 
pay  and  satisfy  said  fine  or  penalty  and  the  cost  thereof,  to 
sentence  such  person  to  labor  for  said  city  for  such  reason 
able  time,  not  exceeding  six  calendar  months,  for  any  one 
offence,  as  may  be  deemed  equivalent  to  such  penalty  and 
costs,  which  labor  shall  be  such  as  may  be  designated  by  the 
\  mayor,  aldermen,  and  common-council  men  of  the  city/ 

"  Power  was  thus  given  to  consider  any  evening  meeting 
of  colored  persons  a  disorderly  one,  and  to  arrest  all  who  were 
participating  in  it.  Nothing  was  more  natural  than  that  the 
negroes,  with  their  social  and  even  gregarious  habits,  should, 
in  their  new  estate  of  freedom,  be  disposed  to  assemble  for 
the  purpose  of  considering  their  own  interests  and  their 

62 


THE  SOUTHERN  "BLACK  CODE" 

future  prospects.  It  is  eminently  to  the  discredit  of  the 
state  of  Alabama  and  of  the  city  of  Mobile  that  so  innocent 
a  purpose  should  be  thwarted,  perverted,  made  criminal  and 
punished. 

"  The  fact  will  not  escape  attention  that  in  these  enact 
ments  the  words  '  master,1 '  mistress,1  and  '  servant '  are  con 
stantly  used,  and  that  under  the  operation  of  the  laws  a  form 
of  servitude  was  re-established,  more  heartless  and  more  cruel 
than  the  slavery  which  had  been  abolished.  Under  the 
institution  of  slavery  a  certain  attachment  would  spring  up 
between  the  master  and  his  slave,  and  with  it  came  a  certain 
protection  to  the  latter  against  want  and  against  suffering  in 
his  old  age.  With  all  its  wrongfulness  and  its  many  cruel 
ties,  there  were  ameliorations  in  the  slave  system  which  soft 
ened  its  asperities  and  enabled  vast  numbers  of  people 
possessing  conscience  and  character  to  assume  the  relation  of 
master.  But  in  the  treatment  of  the  colored  man  now  pro 
posed,  there  was  absolute  heartlessness  and  rank  injustice. 
It  was  proposed  to  punish  him  for  no  crime,  to  declare  the 
laborer  not  worthy  of  his  hire,  to  leave  him  friendless  and 
forlorn,  without  sympathy,  without  rights  under  the  law, 
socially  an  outcast  and  industrially  a  serf — a  serf  who  had 
no  connection  with  the  land  he  tilled,  and  who  had  none  of 
the  protection  which  even  the  autocracy  of  Russia  extended 
to  the  lowliest  creature  that  acknowledged  the  sovereignty 
of  the  Czar. 

"  These  laws  were  framed  with  malignant  cunning  so  as  not 
to  be  limited  in  specific  form  of  words  to  the  negro  race,  but 
they  were  exclusively  confined  to  that  race  in  their  execu 
tion.  It  is  barely  possible  that  a  white  vagrant  of  excep 
tional  depravity  might,  now  and  then,  be  arrested ;  but  the 
negro  was  arrested  by  wholesale  on  a  charge  of  vagrancy 
which  rested  on  no  foundation  except  an  arbitrary  law 
specially  enacted  to  fit  his  case.  Loitering  around  tippling- 
shops,  one  of  the  offences  enumerated,  was  in  far  larger 

63 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

proportion  the  habit  of  white  men,  but  they  were  left  un 
touched  and  the  negro  alone  was  arrested  and  punished.  In 
the  entire  code  this  deceptive  form,  of  apparently  including 
all  persons,  was  a  signally  dishonest  feature.  The  makers  of 
the  law  evidently  intended  that  it  should  apply  to  the  negro 
alone,  for  it  was  administered  on  that  basis  with  rigorous 
severity.  The  general  phrasing  was  to  deceive  people  outside, 
and,  perhaps,  to  lull  the  consciences  of  some  objectors  at 
home,  but  it  made  no  difference  whatever  in  the  execution  of 
the  statutes.  White  men  who  had  no  more  visible  means  of 
support  than  the  negro  were  left  undisturbed,  while  the 
negro,  whose  visible  means  of  support  were  in  his  strong 
arms  and  his  willingness  to  work,  was  prevented  from  using 
the  resources  conferred  upon  him  by  nature,  and  reduced  not 
merely  to  the  condition  of  a  slave,  but  subjected  to  the  de 
moralization  of  being  adjudged  a  criminal. 

"In  Florida  the  laws  resembled  those  of  Alabama,  but 
were  perhaps  more  severe  in  their  penalties.  The  '  vagrant ' 
there  might  be  hired  out  for  full  twelve  months,  and  the 
money  arising  from  his  labor,  in  case  the  man  had  no  wife 
and  children,  was  directed  to  be  applied  for  '  the  benefit  of 
the  orphans  and  poor  of  the  county,'  although  the  negro  had 
been  declared  a  vagrant  because  he  had  no  visible  means  of 
support,  and  was  therefore  quite  as  much  in  need  of  the 
avails  of  his  labor  as  those  to  whom  the  law  diverted  them. 
Among  the  curious  enactments  of  that  state  was  one  to 
establish  and  organize  a  criminal  court  for  each  county,  em 
powered  to  exercise  jurisdiction  in  the  trial  of  all  offences 
where  the  punisment  did  not  affect  the  life  of  the  offender. 
It  is  obvious  that  the  law  was  originated  mainly  for  the 
punishment  of  negroes;  and  to  expedite  its  work  it  was 
enacted  that  '  in  the  proceedings  of  said  court,  no  present 
ment,  indictment,  or  written  pleading  shall  be  required,  but 
it  shall  be  sufficient  to  pub  the  party  accused  upon  his  or  her 
trial,  that  the  offence  and  facts  are  plainly  set  forth  with 

64 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

reasonable  certainty  in  the  warrant  of  arrest.1  It  was  further 
provided  that  where  fines  were  imposed  and  the  party  was 
unable  to  pay  them,  '  the  county  commissioner  may  hire  out, 
at  public  outcry,  the  said  party  to  any  person  who  will  take 
him  or  her  for  the  shortest  time,  and  pay  the  fine  imposed 
and  the  cost  of  prosecution.1  The  fines  thus  paid  went  into 
the  county  treasury  for  the  general  expenses  of  the  county. 
The  law  was  thus  cunningly  contrived  to  hurry  the  negro 
into  an  odious  form  of  slavery,  and  to  make  the  earnings 
which  came  from  his  hard  labor  pay  the  public  expenses, 
which  were  legitimately  chargeable  upon  the  property  of  the 
county. 

"  Accompanying  the  act  establishing  this  court  was  a  law 
prescribing  additional  penalties  for  the  commission  of  offences 
against  the  state ;  and  this,  like  the  former,  was  framed 
especially  for  the  negro.  Its  first  section  provided  that 
where  punishment  of  an  offence  had  hitherto  been  limited  to 
fine  or  imprisonment,  there  should  be  superadded,  as  an 
alternative,  the  punishment  of  standing  in  the  pillory  for  one 
hour,  or  whipping,  not  exceeding  thirty-nine  lashes,  on  the 
bare  back.  The  latter  punishment  was  reserved  expressly  for 
the  negro.  It  was  provided  further  that  it  '  shall  not  be 
lawful  for  any  negro,  mulatto,  or  person  of  color  to  own,  use, 
or  keep  any  bowie-knife,  dirk,  sword,  firearms,  or  ammunition 
of  any  kind,  unless  he  first  obtain  a  license  to  do  so  from  the 
judge  of  probate  for  the  county  in  which  he  is  a  resident.1 
The  judge  could  issue  the  license  to  him  only  upon  recom 
mendation  of  two  respectable  white  men.  Any  negro  at 
tempting  to  keep  arms  of  any  kind  was  to  be  deemed  guilty 
of  a  misdemeanor,  compelled  to  *  forfeit  the  arms  for  the  use 
of  the  informer,  stand  in  the  pillory1  (and  be  pelted  by  the 
mob)  '  for  one  hour,  and  then  whipped  with  thirty-nine  lashes 
on  the  bare  back.1  The  same  penalty  was  prescribed  for  any 
person  of  color  6  who  shall  intrude  himself  into  any  religious 
or  other  public  assembly  of  white  persons,  or  into  any  rail- 
5  65 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

road-car  or  other  vehicle  set  apart  f  >r  the  accommodation  of 
white  persons ; '  and  with  a  mock  show  of  impartiality  it  was 
provided  that  a  white  man  intruding  himself  into  an  assem 
bly  of  negroes,  or  into  a  negro-car,  might  be  subjected  to  a 
like  punishment.  This  restriction  upon  the  negro  was  far 
more  severe  than  that  imposed  in  the  days  of  slavery,  when, 
in  many  of  the  Southern  states,  the  gallery  of  the  church 
was  permitted  to  be  freely  occupied  by  them.  A  peculiarly 
atrocious  discrimination  against  the  negro  was  included  in 
the  sixth  section  of  the  law  from  which  these  quotations  are 
made.  It  was  provided  therein  that  '  if  any  person  or  persons 
shall  assault  a  white  female  with  intent  to  commit  rape,  or 
be  accessory  thereto,  he  or  they,  upon  conviction,  shall  suffer 
death ; '  but  there  was  no  prohibition  and  no  penalty  pre 
scribed  for  the  same  crime  against  a  negro  woman.  She  was 
left  unprotected  by  law  against  the  brutal  lust  and  the  vio 
lence  of  white  men. 

"  In  the  laws  of  South  Carolina  the  oppression  and  injustice 
towards  the  negro  were  conspicuously  marked.  The  restric 
tion  as  to  firearms,  which  was  general  to  all  the  states,  was 
especially  severe.  A  negro  found  with  any  kind  of  weapon 
in  his  possession  was  punished  by  'a  fine  equal  to  twice  the 
value  of  the  weapon  so  unlawfully  kept,  and,  if  that  be  not 
immediately  paid,  by  corporal  punishment.'*  Perhaps  the 
most  radically  unjust  of  all  the  statutes  was  reserved  for  this 
state.  The  legislature  enacted  that  'no  person  of  color 
shall  pursue  the  practice,  art,  trade,  or  business  of  an  artisan, 
mechanic,  or  shopkeeper,  or  any  other  trade  or  employment 
besides  that  of  husbandry,  or  that  of  a  servant  under  contract 
for  labor,  until  he  shall  have  obtained  a  license  from  the 
judge  of  the  district  court,  which  license  shall  be  good  for 
one  year  only.'  If  the  license  was  granted  to  the  negro  to 
be  a  shopkeeper  or  peddler,  he  was  compelled  to  pay  a  hun 
dred  dollars  a  year  for  it;  and  if  he  wished  to  pursue  the 
rudest  mechanical  calling  he  was  compelled  to  pay  a  license- 

66 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK   CODE" 

fee  of  ten  dollars.  No  such  fees  were  exacted  of  white  men, 
and  no  such  fees  were  exacted  of  the  free  black  man  during 
the  era  of  slavery.  Every  avenue  for  improvement  was 
closed  against  him  ;  and  in  a  state  which  boasted  somewhat 
indelicately  of  its  chivalric  dignity,  the  negro  was  merci 
lessly  excluded  from  all  chances  to  better  his  condition 
individually,  or  to  improve  the  character  of  his  race. 

"  Mississippi  followed  in  the  general  line  of  penal  enact 
ments  prescribed  in  South  Carolina,  though  her  code  was 
possibly  somewhat  less  severe  in  the  deprivations  to  which 
the  negro  was  subjected.  It  was,  however,  bad  enough  to 
stir  the  indignation  of  every  lover  of  justice.  The  legisla- 
lature  had  enacted  a  law  that  '  if  the  laborer  shall  quit  the 
service  of  the  employer  before  the  expiration  of  his  term  of 
service  without  just  cause,  he  shall  forfeit  his  wages  for  that 
year  up  to  the  time  of  quitting.1  Practically  the  negro  was 
himself  never  permitted  to  judge  whether  the  cause  which 
drove  him  to  seek  employment  elsewhere  was  just,  the  white 
man  being  the  sole  arbiter  in  the  premises.  It  was  provided 
that  '  every  civil  officer  shall,  and  every  person  may,  arrest 
and  carry  back  to  his  or  her  legal  employer  any  freedman, 
free  negro  or  mulatto,  who  shall  have  quit  the  service  of  his 
or  her  employer  before  the  expiration  of  his  term  of  service 
without  good  cause,  and  said  officer  shall  be  entitled  to 
receive  for  arresting  and  carrying  back  every  deserting  em 
ployee  aforesaid  the  sum  of  five  dollars,  and  ten  cents  per  mile 
from  the  place  of  arrest  to  the  place  of  delivery,  and  these 
sums  shall  be  held  by  the  employer  as  a  set-off  for  so  much 
against  the  wages  of  said  deserting  employee  ;  provided  that 
said  arrested  party,  after  being  so  returned  home,  may  appeal 
to  a  justice  of  the  peace,  or  a  member  of  the  board  of  police, 
who  shall  summarily  try  whether  said  appellant  is  legally 
employed  by  the  alleged  employer." 

"  It  requires  little  familiarity  with  Southern  administration 
of  justice  between  a  white  man  and  a  negro  to  know  that 

67 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

such  appeal  was  always  worse  than  fruitless,  and  that  its 
only  effect,  if  attempted,  would  be  to  secure  even  harsher 
treatment  than  if  the  appeal  had  not  been  made.  The  pro 
visions  for  enticing  a  negro  from  his  employer,  included  in 
this  act,  were  in  the  same  spirit  and  almost  in  the  same 
language  as  the  provisions  of  the  slave-code  applicable  to  the 
negro  before  the  era  of  emancipation.  The  person  '  giving 
or  selling  to  any  deserting  freedman,  free  negro,  or  mulatto, 
any  food,  raiment,  or  other  things,  shall  be  guilty  of  a  mis 
demeanor,1  and  might  be  punished  by  a  fine  of  two  hundred 
dollars  and  costs,  or  he  might  be  put  into  prison,  and  be 
also  sued  by  the  employer  for  damages.  For  attempting  to 
entice  any  freedman  or  free  negro  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
state,  the  person  offending  might  be  fined  five  hundred  dol 
lars  ;  and  if  not  immediately  paid,  the  court  could  sentence 
the  delinquent  to  imprisonment  in  the  county  jail  for  six 
months.  The  entire  code  of  Mississippi  for  freedmen  was  in 
the  spirit  of  the  laws  quoted.  Justice  was  defied,  and  injus 
tice  incorporated  as  the  very  spirit  of  the  laws.  It  was 
altogether  a  shameless  proclamation  of  indecent  wrong  on 
the  part  of  the  Legislature  of  Mississippi. 

"  Louisiana  probably  attained  the  worst  eminence  in  this 
vicious  legislation.  At  the  very  moment  when  the  Thirty- 
ninth  Congress  was  assembling  to  consider  the  condition  of 
the  Southern  states  and  the  whole  subject  of  their  Recon 
struction,  it  was  found  that  a  bill  was  pending  in  the  Legis 
lature  of  Louisiana  providing  that  '  every  adult  freed  man  or 
woman  shall  furnish  themselves  with  a  comfortable  home  and 
visible  means  of  support  within  twenty  days  after  the  passage 
of  this  act?  and  that  6  any  freed  man  or  woman  failing  to 
obtain  a  home  and  support  as  thus  provided  shall  be  imme 
diately  arrested  by  any  sheriff  or  constable  in  any  parish,  or 
by  the  police  officer  in  any  city  or  town  in  said  parish  where 
said  freedman  may  be,  and  by  them  delivered  to  the  Recorder 
of  the  parish,  and  by  him  hired  out,  by  public  advertisement, 

68 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

to  some  citizen,  being  the  highest  bidder,  for  the  remainder 
of  the  year/  And  in  case  the  laborer  should  leave  his  em 
ployer's  service  without  his  consent,  '  he  shall  be  arrested  and 
assigned  to  labor  on  some  public  works  without  compensa 
tion  until  his  employer  reclaims  him.''  The  laborers  were 
not  to  be  allowed  to  keep  any  live-stock,  and  all  time  spent 
from  home  without  leave  was  to  be  charged  against  them  at 
the  rate  of  two  dollars  per  day,  and  worked  out  at  that  rate. 
Many  more  provisions  of  the  same  general  character  were 
contained  within  the  bill,  the  whole  character  and  scope  of 
which  were  forcibly  set  before  the  Senate  by  Mr.  Wilson  of 
Massachusetts.  It  was  not  only  a  proof  of  cruelty  enacted 
into  law,  but  was  such  a  defiance  to  the  spirit  of  the  Eman 
cipation  Amendment  that  it  subjected  the  legislature  which 
approved  the  amendment  and  enacted  these  laws  to  a  charge 
of  inconsistency  so  grave  as  to  make  the  former  act  appear  in 
the  light  of  both  a  legal  and  moral  fraud.  It  was  declaring 
the  negro  to  be  free  by  one  statute,  and  immediately  pro 
ceeding  to  re-enslave  him  by  another. 

"  By  a  previous  law  Louisiana  had  provided  that  all  agri 
cultural  laborers  should  be  compelled  to  '  make  contracts  for 
labor  during  the  first  ten  days  of  January  for  the  entire 
year/  With  a  demonstrative  show  of  justice  it  was  provided 
that  '  wages  due  shall  be  a  lien  on  the  crop,  one-half  to  be 
paid  at  times  agreed  by  the  parties,  the  other  half  to  be 
retained  until  the  completion  of  the  contract ;  but  in  case 
of  sickness  of  the  laborer,  wages  for  the  time  shall  be  de 
ducted,  and  where  the  sickness  is  supposed  to  be  feigned  for 
the  purpose  of  idleness,  double  the  amount  shall  be  deducted  ; 
and  should  the  refusal  to  work  extend  beyond  three  days,  the 
negro  shall  be  forced  to  labor  on  roads,  levees,  and  public 
works  without  pay.'  The  master  was  permitted  to  make 
deductions  from  the  laborer's  wages  for  'injuries  done  to 
animals  or  agricultural  implements  committed  to  his  care,  or 
for  bad  or  negligent  work,'  he,  of  course,  being  the  judge. 

69 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

'  For  every  act  of  disobedience  a  fine  of  one  dollar  shall  be 
imposed  upon  the  laborer ; '  and  among  the  cases  deemed  to 
be  disobedience  were  '  impudence,  swearing,  or  using  indecent 
language  in  the  presence  of  the  employer,  his  family,  or  his 
agent,  or  quarrelling  or  fighting  among  one  another."  It  has 
been  truthfully  said  of  this  provision  that  the  master  or  his 
agent  might  assail  the  ear  with  profaneness  aimed  at  the 
negro  man,  and  outrage  every  sense  of  decency  in  foul  lan 
guage  addressed  to  the  negro  woman  ;  but  if  one  of  the  help 
less  creatures,  goaded  to  resistance  and  crazed  under  tyranny, 
should  answer  back  with  impudence,  or  should  relieve  his 
mind  with  an  oath,  or  retort  indecency  upon  indecency,  he 
did  so  at  the  cost  to  himself  of  one  dollar  for  every  outburst. 
The  agent  referred  to  in  the  statute  was  the  well-known 
overseer  of  the  cotton  region,  who  was  always  coarse  and 
often  brutal,  sure  to  be  profane,  and  scarcely  knowing  the 
border-line  between  ribaldry  and  decency.  The  care  with 
which  the  law-makers  of  Louisiana  provided  that  his  delicate 
ears  and  sensitive  nerves  should  not  be  offended  with  an  oath 
or  with  an  indelicate  word  from  a  negro,  will  be  appreciated 
by  all  who  have  heard  the  crack  of  the  whip  on  a  Southern 
plantation. 

"  The  wrongs  inflicted  under  the  name  of  law,  thus  far  re 
cited,  were  still  further  aggravated  in  a  majority  of  the  re 
bellious  states  by  the  exaction  of  taxes  from  the  colored  men 
to  an  amount  altogether  disproportionate  to  their  property. 
Indeed,  of  property  they  had  none.  Just  emerging  from  a 
condition  of  slavery  in  which  their  labor  had  been  constantly 
exacted  without  fee  or  reward  of  any  kind,  it  was  impossible 
that  they  could  be  the  owners  of  anything  except  their  own 
bodies.  Notwithstanding  this  fact,  the  negroes,  en  masse, 
were  held  to  be  subjects  of  taxation  in  the  state  governments 
about  to  be  reorganized.  In  Georgia,  for  example,  a  state 
tax  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  was  levied 
in  the  first  year  of  peace.  The  property  of  the  state,  even 

70 


THE  SOUTHERN  "BLACK  CODE" 

after  all  the  ruin  of  the  war,  exceeded  two  hundred  and  fifty 
million  dollars.  This  tax,  therefore,  amounted  to  less  than 
one-seventh  of  one  per  cent  upon  the  aggregate  valuation 
of  the  state,  —  equal  to  the  imposition  of  only  a  dollar  and 
a  half  upon  each  thousand  dollars  of  property.  The  legis 
lature  of  the  state  decreed,  however,  that  a  large  proportion 
of  this  small  levy  should  be  raised  by  a  poll-tax  of  a  dollar 
per  head  upon  every  man  in  the  state  between  the  ages  of 
twenty-one  and  sixty  years.  There  were  in  Georgia  at  the 
time  from  eighty-five  thousand  to  ninety  thousand  colored 
men  subject  to  the  tax  ;  perhaps,  indeed,  the  number  reached 
one  hundred  thousand.  It  was  thus  ordained  that  the 
negroes,  who  had  no  property  at  all,  should  pay  one-third 
as  much  as  the  white  men,  who  had  two  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  of  property  in  possession.  This  odious  and  unjust 
tax  was  stringently  exacted  from  the  negro.  To  make  sure 
that  not  one  should  escape,  the  tax  was  held  as  a  lien  upon 
his  labor,  and  the  employer  was  under  distraint  to  pay  it. 
In  Alabama  they  levied  for  the  same  purpose  two  dollars  on 
every  person  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  fifty,  causing 
a  still  larger  proportion  of  the  total  tax  to  fall  on  the  negro 
than  the  Georgia  law-makers  deemed  expedient. 

"  Texas  followed  with  a  capitation  tax  of  a  dollar  per  head, 
while  Florida  levied  upon  every  inhabitant  between  the  ages  of 
twenty-one  and  fifty-five  years  a  capitation  tax  of  three  dollars, 
and  upon  failure  or  refusal  to  pay  the  same  the  tax-collector 
was  'authorized  and  required  to  seize  the  body  of  the  de 
linquent,  and  hire  him  out,  after  five  days*  public  notice 
before  the  door  of  the  court  house,  to  any  person  who  will 
pay  the  said  tax  and  the  costs  incident  to  the  proceedings 
growing  out  of  said  arrest,  for  his  services  for  the  shortest 
period  of  time.'  As  the  costs  as  well  as  the  capitation  tax 
were  to  be  worked  out  by  the  negro,  it  is  presumable  that, 
in  the  spirit  of  this  tax-law,  they  were  enlarged  to  the 
utmost  limit  that  decency,  according  to  the  standard  set  up 

71 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

by  this  law,  would  permit.  It  is  fair  to  presume  that,  in  any 
event,  the  costs  would  not  be  less  than  the  tax,  and  might, 
indeed,  be  double  or  treble  that  amount.  As  a  negro  could 
not,  at  that  time,  be  hired  out  for  more  than  seven  dollars 
and  a  half  per  month,  the  plain  inference  is  that  for  the  sup 
port  of  the  state  of  Florida  the  negro  might  be  compelled  to 
give  one  month's  labor  yearly.  Even  by  the  capitation  tax 
alone,  without  the  incident  of  the  costs,  every  negro  man  was 
compelled  to  give  the  gains  and  profits  of  nearly  two  weeks' 
labor. 

"  A  poll-tax,  though  not  necessarily  limited  in  this  man 
ner,  has  usually  accompanied  the  right  of  suffrage  in  the 
different  states  of  the  Union,  but  in  the  late  rebellious 
states  it  conferred  no  franchise.  It  might  be  supposed  that 
ordinary  generosity  would  have  devoted  it  to  the  education 
of  the  ignorant  class  from  which  it  was  forcibly  wrung,  but 
no  provision  of  the  kind  was  even  suggested.  .  .  . 

"  It  was  at  once  seen  that  if  the  party  which  had  insisted 
upon  the  emancipation  of  the  slave  as  a  final  condition  of 
peace  should  now  abandon  him  to  his  fate,  and  turn  him 
over  to  the  anger  and  hate  of  the  class  from  whose  ownership 
he  had  been  freed,  it  would  countenance  and  commit  an  act 
of  far  greater  wrong  than  was  designed  by  the  most  ma 
lignant  persecutor  of  the  race  in  any  one  of  the  Southern 
states.  When  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  acting 
independently  of  the  executive  power  of  the  nation,  decreed 
emancipation  by  amending  the  Constitution,  it  solemnly 
pledged  itself,  with  all  its  power,  to  give  protection  to  the 
emancipated  at  whatever  cost  and  at  whatever  sacrifice.  No 
man  could  read  the  laws  which  have  been  here  briefly  re 
viewed  without  seeing  and  realizing  that,  if  the  negro  were 
to  be  deprived  of  the  protecting  power  of  the  nation  that 
had  set  him  free,  he  had  better  at  once  be  remanded  to 
slavery,  and  to  that  form  of  protection  which  cupidity,  if  not 
humanity,  would  always  inspire.*' 

72 


THE    SOUTHERN    "BLACK    CODE" 

"  The  objectionable  and  cruel  legislation  of  the  Southern 
states  —  examples  of  which  might  be  indefinitely  cited  in 
addition  to  those  already  given  "  —  fairly  and  forcefully  illus 
trates  the  spirit  and  temper  of  the  white  people  of  the  South, 
and  their  utter  contempt  for  the  unexampled  generosity 
on  the  part  of  the  nation  which  gave  them  commission, 
carte  blanche,  to  reconstruct  their  states.  They  responded 
with  a  cruel  and  barbarous  code  which  was  an  affront  to 
Christian  civilization. 


73 


CHAPTER   III 

SOUTHERN   OPPOSITION   TO 
RECONSTRUCTION 

THE  white  people  of  the  South  thus  took  the  whip  hand 
in  carrying  out  reconstruction,  free  and  unhampered. 
They  did  not  improve  the  opportunity ;  rather  they 
shamefully  abused  it.  In  the  same  spirit  they  elected  mem 
bers,  senators  and  representatives,  to  the  Congress,  every 
one  of  them  former  leaders  in  the  Confederacy.  These  mem 
bers  presented  themselves  as  early  as  December,  1865,  but 
the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Representatives  each  refused  to 
receive  or  admit  the  Southern  delegations.  Thus  an  issue 
was  raised.  A  great  struggle  was  on.  Who  can  say  that 
God  was  not  leading  a  people?  For  out  of  this  issue  and 
struggle  the  ballot  finally  came  to  the  negro.  The  ballot 
probably  would  not  have  been  bestowed  upon  him,  certainly 
not  at  the  time  nor  in  the  way  and  manner  it  was,  if  the 
South  had  been  lenient  toward  him  and  had  shown  a  dispo 
sition  to  respect  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  and  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment  as  accomplished  results ;  and  pro 
tected  him  in  life  and  property,  the  right  of  contract,  mar 
riage  relations,  locomotion,  the  privileges  of  schools,  and 
other  just  and  equitable  relations,  irrespective  of  the  ballot, 
which  make  for  the  peace,  prosperity,  and  well-being  of  the 
community. 

But  the  determination  of  the  Southerners  to  suppress  the 
colored  man  and  take  vengeance  on  him  for  their  defeat  on 
the  field  of  battle,  and  by  Black  Codes  make  his  condition 
worse  under  emancipation  than  it  was  under  slavery,  depriv 
ing  him  of  every  protection,  making  him  an  outcast,  with 
every  man's  hand  against  him,  fired  the  hearts  of  the  people 
of  the  North  and  aroused  their  keener  sense  of  justice  and 
deeper  feelings  of  humanity  as  nothing  else  could  have  done. 

74 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Black  Code  of  laws, 
partially  outlined  above,  was  only  the  first  instalment  of 
oppressive  measures  against  the  negro.  Other  and  more 
cruel  laws  would  certainly  have  followed  the  admission  of  the 
Southern  delegates  to  seats  in  Congress.  Besides,  the  ad 
mission  of  the  Southern  delegates  at  this  time  would  have 
intrenched  the  doctrines  of  state  lights  in  their  most  obnox 
ious  and  menacing  forms.  The  ex-Confederates  would  have 
been  masters  of  the  situation.  The  solid  South  combined 
with  a  few  scattering  Northern  votes  would  have  ruled.  The 
conquered  would  have  dictated  terms  to  the  conqueror. 
The  hands  of  the  nation  would  have  been  tied  hard  and  fast. 
The  insistence  on  state  rights  would  have  prevented  any 
legislation  by  the  Congress  which  might  have  interfered  with 
the  Black  Code.  The  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amend 
ments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  would,  ob 
viously,  have  been  impossible.  The  Black  Code  would  have 
been  enlarged,  and  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  legislated  out 
of  existence.  The  cry  would  have  been,  "  Slavery  is  dead ! 
Long  live  slavery  ! "  The  barren  victory  of  crushing  the 
rebellion  would  have  gone  to  the  North,  the  fruits  of  the 
victory  to  the  South.  The  very  extremity  to  which  the  arro 
gance  of  the  South  carried  it  in  the  enactment  of  the  Black 
Code,  its  open  defiance,  saved  the  situation. 

The  rejection  of  the  Southern  delegations  by  Congress,  and 
the  universal  condemnation  of  the  Black  Code  throughout 
the  North,  and  as  well  by  the  whole  civilized  world,  were 
to  the  Southerners  like  the  throwing  of  a  lighted  match  into 
a  powder  magazine.  They  w$re  enraged  beyond  expression. 
They  inaugurated  the  reign  of  violence,  terrorism,  and  blood 
letting,  which  has  continued  under  different  guises,  in  full 
force  and  without  lapse,  until  the  present  time.  Their  ven 
geance  was  visited  without  mercy  on  those  white  men  who 
were  known  to  be  loyal  to  the  Union,  murdering  or  driving 
them  from  their  homes  ;  and  as  for  the  colored  people,  they 

75 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

were  nobody's  property,  so  they  were  often  killed  for  the 
sport  of  the  killing.  These  two  classes  they  blamed  for  their 
woes,  and  on  them  they  heaped  their  wrath  with  ruthless  and 
indiscriminate  slaughter. 

On  September  3,  1866,  just  a  little  over  a  year  after  Pres 
ident  Johnson's  Amnesty  Proclamation,  the  Southern  loyal 
ists,  all  whites,  met  in  national  convention  at  Philadelphia 
and  issued  an  address  to  the  nation,  appealing  for  protection 
and  denouncing  the  outrages  and  murders  inflicted  on  the 
loyalists  of  the  South.  In  this  address  they  said :  "  Our 
last  hope  under  God  is  in  the  unity  and  firmness  of  the  states 
that  elected  Abraham  Lincoln  and  defeated  Jefferson  Davis. 
.  .  .  Every  original  Unionist  in  the  South  .  .  .  has  been 
ostracized.  .  .  .  More  than  one  thousand  devoted  Union 
soldiers  have  been  murdered  in  cold  blood  since  the  surrender 
of  Lee,  and  in  no  case  have  their  assassins  been  brought  to 
j  udgment." 

More  than  a  thousand  negroes  also  had  been  slaughtered. 

On  July  20,  1866,  at  New  Orleans,  the  Union  men 
were  holding  a  state  convention.  This  was  raided  and 
broken  up  by  ex-Confederates,  and  over  two  hundred  Union 
men  were  killed  and  wounded.  It  is  very  important  to  bear 
in  mind  that  when  these  harrowing  occurrences  were  taking 
place,  when  this  unrestrained  violence  and  blood-shedding 
was  sweeping  over  the  South  like  a  "  prairie  fire,"  the  Southern 
whites  themselves,  the  ex-Confederates,  had  control  of  the  gov 
ernment  of  every  one  of  the  Southern  states.  They  had  the 
state  legislatures  and  all  other  offices ;  and  their  senators 
and  Representatives,  all  ex-Confederates,  were  knocking  at 
the  doors  of  Congress.  Not  a  single  negro  in  the  South 
was  a  voter ;  not  a  "  carpet-bagger "  was  in  office  in  all  the 
land. 

The  South  thus  threw  away  its  opportunity.  By  the  en 
actment  of  the  Black  Code,  the  practical  nullification  of  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment,  and  the  inauguration  of  the  reign  of 

76 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

terrorism,  violence,  and  bloodshed,  the  South  openly  defied 
the  nation,  struck  it  a  hard  blow,  spurned  its  magnanimity 
and  clemency,  and  challenged  the  further  assertion  of  its 
sovereignty.  This  introduces  the  third  effort  at  recon 
struction. 

Events  were  moving  rapidly.  There  was  much  heat  and 
estrangement,  —  not  only  between  the  North  and  the  South, 
but  between  President  Johnson,  who  sided  with  the  South, 
and  Congress,  backed  by  the  great  body  of  the  people  of  the 
North.  The  great  masses  of  the  American  people  are 
humane,  and  have  an  innate  love  for  justice  and  fair  play, 
and  in  the  long  run  are  sure  to  assert  these  principles  with 
irresistible  force. 

It  was  soon  discovered  that,  as  President  Johnson  upheld 
the  contention  of  the  ex-Confederates,  any  reconstructionary 
measures  passed  by  Congress  would  have  to  run  the  gantlet 
of  his  veto.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  all  such  measures  of 
reconstruction  were  vetoed  by  him  and  had  to  be  repassed 
over  his  veto  by  a  two-thirds  vote. 

The  Republican  party  that  had  brought  the  war  to  a 
successful  termination  saved  the  Union  and  freed  the  slave 
was  in  control  of  the  government.  Its  line  of  duty  was 
plain.  It  neither  doubted  nor  faltered.  It  knew  that 
"  to  doubt  would  be  disloyalty,  to  falter  would  be  sin." 
There  were  some  internal  dissensions,  it  is  true,  and  some  few 
members  or  followers  dropped  by  the  wayside ;  but  the  party 
as  a  whole  responded  to  the  call  of  duty  and  faced  the  issues 
with  firmness  and  determination.  It  was  admirably  led  by 
Charles  Sumner,  William  Pitt  Fessenden,  Benjamin  F.  Wade 
in  the  Senate,  and  Thaddeus  Stevens,  Lyman  Trumbull, 
Henry  Winter  Davis,  and  Samuel  Shellabarger  in  the  House. 
They  made  haste  slowly.  Their  measures  of  reconstruction 
were  taken  gradually  by  easy  stages.  No  more  was  under 
taken  than  the  circumstances  and  necessities  of  the  case 
actually  required,  and  the  public  sentiment  of  the  North 

77 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

would  approve  and  justify.  A  joint  committee  on  recon 
struction  was  appointed.  The  Freedmen's  Bureau  was  es 
tablished,  and  General  O.  O.  Howard,  who  had  lost  an  arm 
in  the  Virginia  campaign  at  Fair  Oaks,  and  also  had  hurled 
back  the  flower  and  chivalry  of  the  South  at  Cemetery  Ridge  in 
the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  and  had  rendered  other  distin 
guished  services  throughout  the  war,  was  placed  at  its  head. 
He  was  distinctively  a  Christian  soldier,  the  Havelock  of  the 
American  army.  The  Bureau  "  was  primarily  designed  as  a 
protection  to  the  freedmen  of  the  South,  and  to  the  class  of 
white  men  known  as  '  refugees,1  driven  from  their  homes  by  the 
rebels  on  account  of  their  loyalty  to  the  Union."  Its  powers 
were  enlarged  so  as  to  not  only  enable  it  to  protect  these 
two  classes  in  life,  but  all  property  and  civil  rights. 

The  Congress  now  applied  itself  to  the  more  serious  question 
of  the  reconstruction  of  the  lately  rebellious  states.  On  the 
30th  of  April,  1866,  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens,  in  behalf  of  the 
Committee  on  Reconstruction,  reported  a  joint  resolution 
proposing  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

The  amendment  as  finally  adopted  constitutes  the  Four 
teenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  and  is  as  follows : 

SECTION  1.  All  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States, 
and  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  thereof,  are  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  and  of  the  State  wherein  they  reside.  No  State  shall 
make  or  enforce  any  law  which  shall  abridge  the  privileges  or 
immunities  of  citizens  of  the  United  States ;  nor  shall  any  State 
deprive  any  person  of  life,  liberty,  or  property  without  due  pro 
cess  of  law ;  nor  deny  to  any  person  within  its  jurisdiction  the 
equal  protection  of  the  laws. 

SECT.  2.  Representatives  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  seve 
ral  States  according  to  their  respective  numbers,  counting  the 
whole  number  of  persons  in  each,  excluding  Indians  not  taxed. 
But  when  the  right  to  vote  at  any  election  for  the  choice  of 
electors  for  President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States, 

78 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

representatives  in  Congress,  the  executive  and  judicial  officers  of 
a  State,  or  members  of  the  Legislature  thereof,  is  denied  to  any 
of  the  male  inhabitants  of  such  State,  being  twenty-one  years  of 
age,  and  citizens  of  the  United  States,  or  in  any  way  abridged, 
except  for  participation  in  rebellion  or  other  crime,  the  basis  of 
representation  therein  shall  be  reduced  in  the  proportion  which 
the  number  of  such  male  citizens  shall  bear  to  the  whole  number 
of  male  citizens  twenty-one  years  of  age  in  such  State.  .  .  . 

The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce,  by  appropriate 
legislation,  the  provisions  of  this  article. 

The  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  was 
passed  by  Congress  on  the  13th  day  of  June,  1866.  The 
principles  of  this  amendment  had  been  presented  and  debated 
in  one  form  or  another  from  the  early  part  of  this  session 
until  finally  formulated  and  passed  as  it  stands  to-day  and 
will  stand  forever. 

The  South  had  trampled  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  under 
its  feet  and  treated  with  scorn  the  national  good-will.  The 
Fourteenth  Amendment  was  the  nation's  answer  to  the  South 
ern  Black  Code.  Other  legislation  made  it  incumbent  on 
each  of  the  seceding  states  to  accept  and  adopt  this  amend 
ment  before  they  would  be  recognized  as  assuming  their 
practical  and  proper  relations  with  the  Union.  But  neither 
this  amendment  nor  any  other  legislation  of  Congress  dis 
franchised  the  masses  of  ex-Confederates.  Amnesty  was  open 
to  all. 

It  is  the  chief  complaint  of  leading  Southerners  that  "  the 
white  people  of  the  South  were  suppressed  and  that  the  ballot 
was  given  to  the  negro  over  their  heads  and  for  the  purpose 
of  perpetuating  the  Republican  party  in  power."  This  charge 
is  not  tenable.  He  who  says  that  the  Republican  party  "  was 
playing  politics  "  and  gave  the  negro  the  ballot  with  sinister 
motives  speaks  without  knowledge  of  the  facts  in  the  case,  or 
states  what  he  knows  to  be  untrue.  The  Fourteenth  Amend- 

79 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

ment  simply  assured  to  the  negro  the  ordinary  natural  rights 
of  citizenship  which  belong  to  every  member  of  the  state,  such, 
for  instance,  as  belong  to  women  and  children,  but  it  did  not 
bestow  the  ballot. 

The  ballot,  the  exercise  of  the  election  franchise,  still  rested 
with  the  state.  Each  Southern  state  could  give  it  or  with 
hold  it  as  it  might  please.  But  no  Southern  state  withhold 
ing  the  ballot  from  the  colored  people  could  count  the  colored 
population  in  the  matter  of  representation  in  Congress  or  for 
presidential  electors. 

The  Fourteenth  Amendment  did  destroy  the  Southern 
Black  Code  and  gave  the  colored  people  a  legal  status,  and  it 
made  the  ballot  possible.  It  did  not  actually  make  a  single 
negro  voter  in  all  the  South.  Was  this  "  playing  politics  "  ? 
How  could  this  in  any  way  tend  "  to  perpetuate  the 
Republican  party  in  power "  ? 

At  this  time  neither  Congress  nor  the  people  of  the 
North  contemplated  bestowing  suffrage  on  the  negro.  But 
the  minds  of  both  were  fully  made  up  to  preserve  the  fruits 
of  emancipation  and  protect  the  colored  people  in  all  their 
civil  and  natural  rights  and  prevent  all  discrimination  against 
them  on  account  of  "  race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of 
servitude,"  "  at  any  sacrifice."  And  on  this  issue  they  held 
that  there  was  no  ground  for  compromise. 

The  white  people  of  the  South  received  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  with  a  wild  tempest  of  rage.  Every  Southern  state 
still  in  the  hands  of  ex-Confederates,  except  Tennessee,  re 
jected  it.  Outrages,  murders,  and  violence  on  Unionists  and 
especially  on  the  colored  people,  increased. 

In  the  rejection  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  the  South 
threw  away  its  second  opportunity  to  reconstruct  the  seced 
ing  states  in  harmony  with  the  changed  conditions  and  yet 
without  bestowing  the  ballot  on  the  colored  people.  Its 
acceptance  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  would  have  made 
unnecessary  the  Fifteenth  Amendment. 

80 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

The  Congress,  however,  was  imperturbable.  It  knew  its 
power.  It  dared  to  do.  It  met  the  defiance,  hostility, 
and  violence  of  the  South  with  the  mailed  hand  of  martial 
law.  It  promptly  accepted  the  gage  of  battle  laid  down 
by  the  South.  It  divided  the  ten  seceding  States  into  five 
military  districts  and  General  Grant  by  direction  appointed 
for  each  district  a  commander  of  the  rank  above  a  brigadier- 
general.  These  commanders  were  empowered  to  arrange  for 
the  registration  of  citizens  above  the  age  of  twenty-one 
"without  regard  to  race  or  color,11  and  without  prejudice 
to  the  masses  of  ex- Confederates,  who  should  vote  for  a 
constitutional  convention.  This  convention  should  adopt 
a  state  constitution,  prohibiting  slavery  and  recognizing  the 
results  of  the  war,  and  it  should  establish  a  complete  ma 
chinery  of  state  and  local  government  and  provide  for 
the  election  of  senators  and  representatives  to  Congress. 
The  course  of  events  in  the  South  in  the  meanwhile,  the 
indecent  haste  in  enacting  the  Black  Code,  with  its  barbarous 
inflictions,  the  reign  of  violence  and  murder  on  helpless 
colored  people  and  u  refugee"  Unionists,  the  defiant  rejection 
of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  by  every  Southern  state  except 
Tennessee,  the  general  scorn  of  the  nation's  good-will  and 
clemency,  and  the  open  hostility  to  national  authority,  had 
the  effect  of  ripening  public  sentiment  in  every  Northern 
state  in  favor  of  negro  suffrage.  The  South  had  shown  its 
hand.  It  was  perfectly  apparent  that  it  could  not  be  trusted 
to  do  justly  or  even  act  humanely  towards  the  colored  people 
or  the  white  "  refugees  "  who  were  loyal  to  the  Union.  The 
critical  point  was  reached,  the  hour  had  struck  when  the 
nation  must  look  to  others  than  the  ex-Confederates  and 
their  sympathizers  to  reconstruct  the  lately  rebellious  states 
"  with  reference  to  the  emancipation  of  slaves "  and  bring 
them  into  harmonious  relations  with  the  Union. 

Mr.  Elaine,  touching  this  point,  said  :  "  The  South  had 
its  choice,  and  it  deliberately  and  after  fair  warning  decided 
«  81 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

to  reject  the  magnanimous  offer  of  the  North  and  to  insist 
upon  an  advantage  in  representation  against  which  a  common 
sense  of  justice  revolted.  The  North,  foiled  in  its  original 
design  of  reconstruction  by  the  perverse  course  of  the  South, 
was  compelled,  under  the  providence  of  the  Ruler  of  nations, 
to  deal  honestly  and  justly  with  the  colored  people.  ...  A 
higher  than  human  power  controlled  these  great  events. 
The  wrath  of  man  was  made  to  praise  the  righteous  works 
of  God.  Whatever  were  the  deficiencies  of  the  negro  race 
in  education  for  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  citizenship, 
they  had  exhibited  the  one  vital  qualification  of  an  in 
stinctive  loyalty  and,  as  far  as  lay  in  their  power,  a  steadfast 
helpfulness  to  the  cause  of  the  national  Union,  — ...  his 
race  contributing  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  troops  to 
the  national  service." 

The  famous  Reconstruction  Act,  placing  the  South  under 
martial  law,  was  passed  on  March  2,  1867.  It  embodied 
negro  suffrage.  Under  God,  justice  had  come.  The  ex-Con 
federates  had  been  exercising  full  control  over  the  govern 
ment  of  every  Southern  state  for  two  years  after  the  war,  and 
had  defied  the  national  laws  and  authority,  and  had  per 
sistently  thwarted  the  work  of  reconstruction. 

In  debating  this  act  in  Congress,  placing  the  South  under 
military  law,  Mr.  Garfield,  afterwards  President  of  the 
United  States,  said :  "  I  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  from 
the  collapse  of  the  Rebellion  to  the  present  hour,  Congress 
has  undertaken  to  restore  the  States  lately  in  rebellion  by 
co-operation  with  their  people,  and  that  our  efforts  in  that 
direction  have  proven  a  complete  and  disastrous  failure.  .  .  . 
The  constitutional  amendment  (the  Fourteenth  Amendment) 
did  not  come  up  to  the  full  height  of  the  great  occasion. 
It  did  not  meet  all  I  desired  in  the  way  of  guarantees  to 
liberty,  but  if  the  rebel  States  had  adopted  it  as  Tennessee 
did,  I  should  have  felt  bound  to  let  them  in  on  the  same 
terms  prescribed  for  Tennessee.  I  have  been  in  favor  of 

82 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

waiting  to  give  them  full  time  to  deliberate  and  act.  They 
deliberated.  They  have  acted.  The  last  one  of  the  sinful 
ten  has  at  last,  with  contempt  and  scorn,  flung  back  in  our 
teeth  the  magnanimous  offer  of  a  generous  nation.  It  is 
now  our  turn  to  act.  They  would  not  co-operate  with  us 
in  building  what  they  destroyed.  We  must  remove  the 
rubbish  and  build  from  the  bottom.'1'' 

Mr.  Brandegee  of  Connecticut  said :  "  The  American 
people  demand  that  we  shall  do  something,  and  quickly. 
Already  fifteen  hundred  Union  men  have  been  massacred  in 
cold  blood  (more  than  the  entire  population  of  some  of  the 
towns  in  my  district),  whose  only  crime  has  been  loyalty  to  your 
flag.  ...  In  all  the  revolted  states,  upon  the  testimony  of 
your  ablest  generals,  there  is  no  safety  to  property  or  lives  of 
loyal  men.  Is  this  what  the  loyal  North  has  been  fighting 
for  ?  Thousands  of  loyal  white  men,  driven  like  partridges 
over  the  mountains,  homeless,  houseless,  penniless,  to-day 
throng  this  capital.  They  fill  the  hotels,  they  crowd  the 
avenues,  they  gather  in  these  marble  corridors,  they  look 
down  from  these  galleries,  and  with  supplicating  eye  ask 
protection  from  the  flag  that  hangs  above  the  Speaker's 
chair, —  a  flag  which  thus  far  has  unfurled  its  stripes,  but 
concealed  the  promise  of  its  stars." 

Mr.  Lawrence  of  Ohio  said :  "  For  myself,  I  am  ready  to 
set  aside  by  law  all  these  illegal  governments.  They  have 
rejected  all  fair  terms  of  reconstruction.  They  have  rejected 
the  constitutional  amendments  we  have  tendered  them.  They 
are  engines  of  oppression  against  all  loyal  men." 

Mr.  Boutwell  of  Massachusetts  said :  "  To-day  there  are 
eight  millions  or  more  of  people,  occupying  six  hundred  and 
thirty  thousand  square  miles  of  territory  in  this  country,  who 
are  writhing  under  cruelties  nameless  in  their  character,  and 
injustices  such  as  have  not  been  permitted  to  exist  in  any 
other  country  of  modern  times.  ...  It  is  the  vainest  delu 
sion,  the  wildest  of  hopes,  the  most  dangerous  of  aspirations, 

83 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

to  contemplate  the  reconstruction  of  civil  government  until 
the  rebel  despotisms  enthroned  in  power  in  these  ten  States 
shall  be  broken  up."" 

Mr.  Kelly  of  Pennsylvania  said  :  "  The  passage  of  this  bill 
or  its  equivalent  is  required  by  the  manhood  of  this  Congress, 
to  save  it  from  the  hissing  scorn  and  reproach  of  every  South 
ern  man  who  has  been  compelled  to  seek  a  home  in  the 
by-ways  of  the  North,  of  every  homeless  widow  and  orphan 
of  a  Union  soldier  in  the  South,  who  should  have  been 
protected  by  the  government." 

Mr.  Allison  of  Iowa,  now  United  States  Senator,  said : 
"Believing  as  I  do  that  this  measure  is  essential  to  the 
preservation  of  the  Union  men  of  the  South,  believing  that 
their  lives,  property,  and  liberty  cannot  be  secured  except 
through  military  law,  I  am  for  this  bill." 

Mr.  Elaine's  amendment  to  the  bill  provided  that  "  the 
elective  franchise  shall  be  enjoyed  equally  and  impartially  by 
all  male  citizens  of  the  United  States  twenty-one  years  of  age 
and  upwards,  without  regard  to  race,  color,  or  previous  con 
dition  of  servitude."  He  said :  "  I  believe  the  true  inter 
pretation  of  the  election  of  1866  was  that,  in  addition  to 
the  proposed  constitutional  amendment,  impartial  suffrage 
should  be  the  basis  of  reconstruction.  Why  not  declare  it 
so  ?  Why  not,  when  you  send  out  this  military  police 
through  the  lately  rebellious  States,  send  with  it  that  im 
pressive  declaration  ?  " 

It  was  even  so.  The  declaration  was  sent.  Under  these 
circumstances  the  ballot  came  to  the  negro.  The  Congress 
and  the  nation  now  had  to  look  to  others  than  ex-Confed 
erates  to  do  the  work  of  reconstruction.  The  negro  was 
commanded  to  share  in  it.  How  otherwise  could  these 
states  have  been  reconstructed  in  accordance  with  the  national 
sentiment  and  the  emancipation  laws  ?  It  was  plain  that 
the  ex-Confederates  would  not  do  it.  It  was  equally  clear 
that  the  colored  people  composed  the  only  possible  large 

84 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

constituency  in  the  South  to  be  depended  on ;  and  that  by 
giving  them  the  ballot,  and  enlisting  the  support  of  the 
loyalist  and  of  the  more  conservative  Southerners,  and  the 
assistance  of  the  Union  soldiers  who  had  settled  in  the  South, 
the  work  of  reconstruction  could  be  carried  out ;  but  even 
then  only  under  the  protection  of  martial  law. 

These  three  elements  —  the  large  colored  populations,  the 
Union  soldiers  who  had  settled  in  the  South  after  the  close 
of  the  war,  more  than  two  years  before,  and  the  loyalists  and 
conservative  Southerners  who  accepted  the  new  situation  — 
constituted  the  agency  through  which  the  Southern  states 
were  reconstructed  and  brought  back  into  their  practical  and 
proper  relations  with  the  Union.  They  gave  the  Southern 
states  constitutions  in  harmony  with  the  changed  conditions 
and  the  emancipation  laws.  They  established  orderly  gov 
ernments,  and  because  of  their  necessary  participation  in 
these  governments,  there  arose  the  cry  of  "  negro  domina 
tion,1'  "  carpet-baggers,11  and  "  scalawags.11 

It  is  quite  pertinent  to  remark  here  that,  notwithstanding 
all  the  protest  of  the  Southern  whites,  no  one  has  yet  shown  — 
not  even  Senator  Tillman  or  Senator  Money  —  how  the  seced 
ing  Southern  states  could  have  been  brought  back  into  their 
normal  and  proper  relation  with  the  Union  by  the  formal 
acceptance  of  the  Thirteenth  and  Fourteenth  Amendments  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  the  guaranties  for 
the  protection  of  life,  liberty,  and  property,  "  without  regard 
to  race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude,11  otherwise 
than  through  this  very  agency  which  they  and  others  so  heat 
edly  and  intemperately  denounce. 

The  reconstruction  which  proceeded  under  martial  law 
was  a  necessity.  It  was  an  unusual  as  well  as  undesir 
able  resort,  but  there  was  no  alternative ;  the  attitude 
of  the  ex-Confederates  made  it  necessary  —  it  is  a  full 
justification. 

The  business  and  financial  interests  of  the  country  and 

85 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

every  other  interest  demanded  a  settlement  of  the  questions 
growing  out  of  the  war.  The  nation,  righteously,  would  not 
have  the  Black  Code  and  its  accompaniments  ;  the  South, 
unrighteously,  would  have  nothing  else.  And  yet  recon 
struction  must  be  accomplished.  To  put  the  whole  South 
under  martial  law  indefinitely  or  until  its  passions  were  cooled 
down  was  far  more  objectionable  and  dangerous  than  to  put 
it  under  martial  law  for  a  limited  period  and  until  the  states 
could  be  reconstructed  with  the  assistance  of  the  colored  vote 
and  the  conservative  and  loyal  elements.  The  American 
people  will  not  tolerate  martial  law  save  as  a  temporary 
necessity.  Suppose  the  ex-Confederates  had  said  to  Congress 
and  the  nation,  "  Put  us  under  martial  law,  if  you  choose. 
We  will  stay  under  your  martial  law  forever  before  we  will 
strike  one  line  from  the  Black  Code,  before  we  will  accept 
your  Fourteenth  Amendment  or  any  other  law  objectionable 
to  us.  Do  your  worst.  We  defy  you."  And  that  was  the  real 
position  taken  by  the  South,  declared  in  its  press  and  by  its 
leaders  on  the  rostrum,  —  that  they  "  would  never  submit  to 
the  Fourteenth  Amendment."  What  then?  A  little  child 
can  lead  a  horse  to  the  water,  but  a  giant  can't  make  it  drink. 
There  was  no  power  by  which  the  Congress  could  coerce  the 
ex-Confederates  to  reconstruct  the  Southern  states  against 
their  will. 

Let  it  be  observed  here  that,  as  in  the  course  of  the 
war  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  as  a  war  measure,  was 
necessary  to  save  the  Union,  increasing  as  it  did  its  material 
and  moral  forces  at  home  and  abroad,  and  correspondingly 
decreasing  the  material  and  moral  forces  of  the  Confederacy 
and  destroying  with  a  few  strokes  of  the  pen  its  mightiest 
pillar  of  support,  just  so,  in  the  course  of  reconstruction,  the 
bestowal  of  the  ballot  on  the  negro,  as  a  reconstruction  meas 
ure,  was  absolutely  necessary  to  restore  the  seceding  states 
to  their  former  relations  in  the  Union.  The  enforcement  of 
martial  law  for  an  indefinite  period  would  have  proved  most 

86 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

injurious  to  the  national  cause,  and  increasingly  so  every  day 
after  the  South  had  been  normally  pacified. 

For  the  Southern  leaders  would  have  temporarily  desisted 
from  acts  of  violence  and  murder,  until  they  gained  their 
point,  the  recognition  of  their  states  and  the  admission  of 
their  members  into  Congress.  Then,  fortified  by  the  heresies 
of  state  rights,  they  would  have  "  turned  loose  the  dogs  of 
war  "on  the  helpless  colored  people,  and  the  fugitive  white 
Unionists,  and  the  lives  of  these  people  would  have  been 
made  intolerable.  The  cruelty  and  brutalism  inflicted  on 
the  colored  people  to-day  when  they  are  equal  citi/ens  show 
what  might  have  been  expected  without  the  protection  of 
the  constitutional  amendments ;  and  are  likewise  an  ample, 
a  complete  vindication  of  the  wisdom,  justice,  and  humanity 
of  reconstruction  legislation. 

The  Southern  people  could  have  appealed  to  the  nation 
and  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  for  autonomy, 
declaring  that  disorder  had  ceased  in  their  states,  that  there 
was  no  resistance  to  any  national  law,  that  the  Black  Code 
rested  upon  the  rights  of  the  states  to  regulate  domestic 
affairs,  and  that  rejection  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  was 
not  resisting  the  national  authority,  as  that  amendment  was 
not  a  law  of  the  land  until  approved  by  three-fourths  of  all  the 
states.  What  then  ?  The  Southerners,  finally,  would  have 
won.  The  waiting  policy  would  have  acted  tremendously  in 
their  favor.  They  could  have  forced  a  compromise,  demand 
ing  pay  for  the  slaves ;  reimbursement  for  certain  losses  by 
the  war ;  refused  to  pension  Union  soldiers  unless  Confeder 
ates  were  also  pensioned ;  declined  to  accept  the  national 
debt  unless  certain  debts  of  the  Confederacy  were  also  ac 
cepted;  legislated  as  to  the  colored  people  according  to  their 
own  capricious  will ;  and,  intrenched  behind  the  doctrines  of 
state  rights  in  their  most  objectionable  and  dangerous  forms, 
they  could  have  hampered  and  harassed  the  national  govern 
ment  without  limit ;  and  the  world  would  have  beheld  the 

87 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

amazing  and  bewildering  spectacle  of  a  great  and  powerful 
nation,  triumphant  in  the  greatest  war  of  history,  standing 
utterly  limp  and  helpless  in  the  presence  of  the  conquered, 
and  meekly  yielding  to  their  dictation.  For  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  not  only  gave  the  negro  a  legal  status,  but  its 
fourth  section  made  inviolable  the  public  debt,  provided 
for  pensions,  prohibited  payment  for  slaves,  and  made  void 
all  debts  of  the  Confederacy.  Without  negro  suffrage,  these 
would  remain  open  questions. 

It  was  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  the  negro  that  saved  the 
nation  from  unspeakable  humiliations,  established  beyond 
question  its  supremacy  and  sovereignty,  destroyed  forever 
the  menacing  and  dangerous  forms  of  state  rights,  and 
preserved  "the  jewel  of  liberty  in  the  family  of  freedom," 
thus  fulfilling  in  a  most  signal^  unexpected,  and  remarkable 
manner  Lincoln's  prophecy  that  "  they  would  probably 
help  in  some  trying  time  in  the  future  to  keep  the  jewel  of 
liberty  in  the  family  of  freedom." 

Under  the  desperate  and  chaotic  conditions  existent  in 
the  South  at  this  time,  it  is  not  surprising  that  in  the 
selection  and  election  of  men  to  carry  out  the  work  of  recon 
struction  serious  blunders  were  made  ;  that  some  thieves  and 
plunderers  forged  to  the  front  and  filled  some  of  the  offices. 
It  is  the  universal  experience  in  governmental  affairs  that 
under  normal  conditions,  in  times  of  profound  peace,  bad 
men  and  thieves  have  been  elected  to  offices  and  have  be 
trayed  their  trusts.  It  was  unavoidable,  it  could  not  have 
been  otherwise  during  the  Reconstruction  era.  The  cir 
cumstances  were  propitious  for  this.  The  South  had  gone 
far  beyond  her  financial  ability  in  the  prosecution  of  a 
disastrous  and  wasteful  war.  She  had  no  public  moneys, 
and  her  private  fortunes  were  wrecked  ;  a  billion  dollars  in 
slave  property  had  evaporated.  Money  was  needed  to 
operate  state  and  local  government.  Taxes  were  assessed. 
Bonds  were  issued.  From  25  to  75  per  cent  of  the  par  value 

88 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

of  these  bonds  remained  in  the  safes  and  lockers  of  the 
bondholders  in  the  North  ;  in  fact,  the  Northern  bondholders 
got  a  larger  proportion  of  money  which  should  have  been 
used  to  run  these  state  governments  than  it  was  possible  for 
the  "  carpet-baggers  "  to  steal. 

Those  Southern  leaders  who  attribute  the  poverty  of  the 
South  following  the  war  to  the  stealings  of  "  carpet-baggers  " 
are  unwise  in  their  utterances.  This  poverty  was  due  more 
to  the  waste  of  war,  the  unsettled  conditions,  and  the  low 
price  of  Southern  bonds  than  to  the  stealings  of  the  "  carpet- 
baggers.11  Much  stealing  has  been  done  since  the  passing  of 
these  conditions ;  millions  have  been  stolen  in  later  years  by 
defaulters,  embezzlers,  grafts,  and  boodlers. 

But  after  all  that  may  be  charged  against  the  blundering 
and  plundering  of  the  carpet-bag  governments  in  the  South, 
it  is  probably  true  that  the  Tweed  ring  in  New  York  City 
actually  stole  and  squandered  more  of  the  peopled  money 
than  all  the  "  carpet-baggers  "  in  the  South  combined. 

It  is  also  noteworthy  that  some  of  the  seceding  states  were 
never  under  the  so-called  carpet-bag  government ;  such  were 
Georgia,  Tennessee,  and  Texas  ;  others  were  so  controlled 
for  only  a  short  time,  as,  for  instance,  Louisiana,  Mississippi, 
Virginia,  Alabama,  and  Arkansas,  for  three  or  four  years  ; 
North  Carolina  for  about  six  years  ;  and  only  Florida  and 
South  Carolina  for  about  eight  years.  So  it  will  be  seen  at 
a  glance  that  the  so-called  carpet-bag  government  of  the 
South  was  neither  so  general  nor  so  extended  in  time  as 
Southern  leaders  pretend. 

But  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Northern  men  who  settled 
in  the  South  after  the  close  of  the  war  were  not  unworthy 
men,  nor  were  they  thieves  ;  nor  were  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  loyalists,  and  those  conservative  Southerners  who  ac 
cepted  the  changed  conditions,  unworthy  men  or  thieves ; 
and  as  to  the  colored  people,  they  were  far  too  inflated  with 
the  ideas  of  freedom,  too  happy  in  their  new  life  of  liberty, 

89 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

too  deeply  impressed  and  concerned  about  the  "  sovereignty 
under  the  hat,"  too  busily  engaged  in  trying  to  trace  the 
members  of  their  families  —  husband,  wife,  daughter,  son, 
sister,  brother,  father,  mother,  and  other  kindred  —  who  had 
been  scattered  to  the  four  corners  of  the  earth  by  the  in 
human  and  brutal  system  of  the  slave-pen  and  the  slave 
auction-block  —  to  give  even  a  thought  about  money  making 
in  politics. 

These  Northern  men  who  had  settled  in  the  South,  and 
whom  the  ex-Confederates  called  "  carpet-baggers,"  responded 
to  the  call  of  their  country  to  assist  in  reconstructing  the 
Southern  states  in  the  same  spirit  of  patriotism  which  they 
displayed  when  Sumter  was  fired  on.  The  loyalists  of  the 
South,  who  had  borne  contumacy  and  outrage  during  the 
four  years  of  the  war  and  the  two  years  following  it,  and 
whom  the  ex-Confederates  called  "  scalawags,"  applying  this 
term  also  to  those  Southerners  who  accepted  the  situa 
tion,  responded  to  the  call  to  assist  in  reconstructing  the 
Southern  states,  because  they  rejoiced  that  the  day  of  judg 
ment  had  come  to  the  South,  and  with  their  help  Old  Glory 
would  flutter  over  a  restored  Union. 

And  the  colored  people  !  They  bubbled  over  with  re 
joicings  ;  there  was  nothing  that  they  would  not  have 
done  for  "  the  Lincoln  government "  and  to  sustain  the 
North.  There  was  not  a  colored  man  in  the  South  who 
would  not  have  borne  arms  in  defence  of  the  nation.  If 
the  South  had  tried  "  guerilla  warfare "  after  General  Lee's 
surrender,  then  the  very  last  guerilla  would  have  been  driven 
to  cover,  simply  by  arming  the  700,000  colored  men. 

These  three  classes  rendered  the  nation  services  of  in 
estimable  value  in  a  most  critical  and  perilous  hour,  — 
services  for  which  the  nation  owes  a  lasting  and  incalculable 
debt  of  gratitude.  There  has  been  entirely  too  much  ran 
dom  abuse  of  "  carpet-baggers  "  and  "  scalawags."  It  is  time 
to  call  a  halt  to  these  indiscriminate  denunciations.  Vilifi- 

90 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

cation  and  abuse  are  not  arguments.  The  services  which 
they  rendered  at  a  grave  crisis  were  as  necessary  and  indis 
pensable  in  reconstructing  the  Southern  states  as  were  the 
march  of  Sherman  to  the  sea,  the  triumphs  of  Grant  at 
Vicksburg,  Banks  at  Port  Hudson,  Meade  at  Gettysburg, 
Farragut  at  New  Orleans  and  Mobile  Bay,  the  "  Monitor " 
over  the  "  Merrimac "  in  Hampton  Roads,  and  Sheridan's 
famous  ride  down  the  valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  in  strangling 
and  stamping  out  the  Rebellion.  The  perplexing  problem 
of  reconstruction  was  as  threatening  to  the  nation's  sove 
reignty  as  the  war  to  the  nation's  life.  The  white  people 
of  the  South  themselves  are  responsible  for  the  so-called 
negro  domination  and  carpet-bag  governments.  They  threw 
away  two  opportunities  to  reconstruct,  and  for  a  third  time 
refused  even  to  share  in  the  work  of  reconstruction.  If 
some  stealing  and  plundering  accompanied  the  performance, 
theirs  was  the  blame. 

Among  the  so-called  "carpet-baggers"  and  "scalawags'" 
there  were  men  as  pure  in  purpose,  as  lofty  in  patriotism, 
as  bright  In  intellect,  as  unselfish  in  the  discharge  of  public 
duties,  and  «as  honest,  courageous,  and  noble  in  spirit  as 
America  has  ever  produced.  Because  the  Southerners  could 
not  rule,  or  because  they  were  not  permitted  to  work  ruin, 
they  sulked  ;  and  their  sulking  brought  about  the  very 
evils  of  which  they  so  loudly  and  bitterly  complain.  For  it 
should  always  be  borne  in  mind  that,  while  there  was  a 
sufficiently  numerous  constituency  in  the  large  colored  popu 
lation  of  the  Southern  states,  augmented  and  supported  bv 
the  strong  and  important  body  of  Northern  settlers  and 
reinforced  by  the  large  number  of  loyalists  and  pacified 
Southerners,  to  achieve  their  reconstruction,  yet  there  was  no 
inhibition  against  the  great  mass  of  white  Southerners  par 
ticipating  in  the  reconstruction  of  their  respective  states. 
The  great  masses  of  the  ex-Confederates  could  freely  register 
and  vote  under  the  provisions  of  the  same  act  which  be- 

91 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

stowed  the  ballot  on  the  colored  people.  In  deliberately 
choosing  to  sulk  and  defy  the  nation,  and  in  large  measure 
allow  the  elections  to  pass  by  default  so  far  as  they  were 
concerned,  they  became  even  more  responsible  for  all  the 
evils  which  followed. 

In  the  meantime,  nevertheless,  the  work  of  reconstructing 
the  Southern  states  proceeded  under  the  law  authorized  by 
the  Congress.  The  "  voters  of  twenty-one  years  of  age  and 
upward  "  were  registered  "  without  regard  to  race  or  color,11 
and  without  prejudice  to  the  great  masses  of  ex-Confederates, 
who  for  a  third  time  spurned  and  rejected  the  nation's  good 
will.  Elections  were  held  ;  constitutional  conventions  as 
sembled;  constitutions  were  framed  and  submitted  to  the 
electorate  as  registered  in  the  several  states  for  their  ap 
proval  ;  complete  machinery  for  state  and  local  governments 
was  put  in  operation ;  senators  and  representatives  were 
elected  to  the  Congress.  Tennessee  had  already  abolished 
slavery,  ratified  the  Thirteenth  and  Fourteenth  Amendments, 
and  had  resumed  her  place  in  the  Union,  July  23,  1866  ; 
Arkansas  was  restored  to  her  place  in  the  Union  June  22, 1868  ; 
North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Alabama,  Florida,  Louisiana, 
and  Georgia,  June  25,  1868 ;  Virginia,  January  26 ;  Mis 
sissippi,  February  23;  and  Texas,  March  30,  1870,  the 
delay  being  due  to  non-fulfilment  of  requirements.  The 
state  of  Georgia  expelled  the  colored  men  elected  to  her 
legislature,  and  this  raised  the  question  of  the  right  to 
hold  office.  Whereupon  Congress  took  action  and  passed  a 
bill  December  16,  1869,  declaring  that  "  the  exclusion  of 
persons  from  the  legislature  upon  the  ground  of  race, 
color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude  would  be  illegal  and 
revolutionary  and  is  hereby  prohibited."  Georgia's  senators 
and  representatives  were  denied  admission  to  Congress  until 
the  colored  members  were  reinstated.  Thus  the  question  of 
the  right  of  colored  men  to  hold  office  was  promptly  met 
and  settled. 

92 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

The  reconstruction  of  the  Southern  states  was  now  com 
pleted,  all  the  seceding  states  being  restored  to  their  autonomy 
in  the  Union,  under  a  bill  providing  in  each  case  that  the 
said  state  "is  entitled  and  admitted  to  representation  in 
Congress,  as  one  of  the  states  of  the  Union  upon  the  follow 
ing  fundamental  condition  :  that  the  Constitution  of  [naming 
the  state]  shall  never  be  so  amended  or  changed  as  to  deprive 
any  citizen  or  class  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  of  the 
right  to  vote,  who  are  entitled  to  vote  by  the  Constitution 
herein  recognized,  except  as  a  punishment  for  such  crimes  as 
are  now  felonies  at  the  common  law,  whereof  they  shall  have 
been  duly  convicted." 

It  was  under  this  solemn  compact  that  the  lately  rebellious 
states  were  declared  admitted  to  the  Union.  The  question 
pertinently  arises:  Has  not  each  of  those  Southern  states, 
adopting  new  constitutions  with  the  "grandfather  clause" 
or  other  device  to  deprive  the  colored  people  of  their  right  to 
vote,  violated,  both  in  letter  and  spirit,  this  solemn  compact, 
and  broken  faith  with  the  nation  ?  And  again,  if  South 
Carolina  and  Louisiana  can  violate  the  "  fundamental  con 
dition  "  in  relation  to  the  ballot,  upon  which  they  were  ad 
mitted  to  the  Union,  what  is  to  prevent  Utah  and  other 
states  that  may  choose  to  do  so,  from  violating  their  solemn 
compact  with  the  nation  in  relation  to  polygamy  ?  A  state 
is  in  honor  bound  to  respect  and  observe  its  compact  with  the 
nation.  The  violation  of  such  a  compact  is  an  act  of  bad 
faith  which  the  people  of  a  state  cannot  afford  to  uphold  ; 
and  in  case  the  compact  is  violated  the  nation,  through 
Congress  or  the  courts,  may  make  intervention.  The  nation 
may  sometime  wake  up  to  realize  that  what  is  "  sauce "  for 
the  South  Carolina  "  goose  "  to-day  will  be  "  sauce  "  for  the 
Utah  "gander"  to-morrow. 

The  success  attained  in  organizing  these  governments  did 
not  have  the  effect  of  softening  the  animosities  or  allaying  the 
bitter  resentment  and  hostility  of  the  white  people.  It  greatly 

93 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

aggravated  them.  The  South  had  now  suffered  two  defeats, 
and  in  each  the  negro  was  an  important  factor.  In  the  war, 
the  negro  as  a  soldier  was  potent.  In  reconstruction,  the 
negro  as  a  voter  was  indispensable. 

In  suffering  and  blood,  the  white  people  of  the  South  have 
exacted  a  staggering  price  from  the  colored  people  for  their 
loyalty  and  service  to  the  nation.  And  the  end  is  not  yet. 

The  Confederate  army  was  practically  reorganized  into  a 
secret,  oath-bound  society  —  the  Ku  Klux  Klans  —  covering 
all  the  Southern  states.  They  made  onslaughts  on  the 
governments  established,  and  war  on  their  supporters.  They 
killed  and  murdered,  by  day  and  by  night,  loyalists,  pacified 
Southerners,  and  negroes  without  discrimination  and  without 
mercy.  Mr.  Blaine  said :  "  In  prosecuting  their  purposes 
these  clans  and  organizations  hesitated  at  no  cruelty,  were 
deterred  by  no  considerations  of  law  or  humanity.  They  rode 
by  night,  were  disguised  with  masks,  were  armed  as  freeboot 
ers.  They  whipped,  maimed,  or  murdered  the  victims  of 
their  wrath.  White  men  who  were  co-operating  with  the 
colored  population  politically  were  visited  with  punishments 
of  excessive  cruelty."  "  Over  two  thousand  persons  were 
killed,  wounded,  and  otherwise  injured  in  "  Louisiana  "  within 
a  few  weeks  of  the  presidential  election  of  1868  ; "  .  .  .  the 
state  "  was  overrun  by  violence,  midnight  raids,  secret  mur 
ders,  and  open  riots. "  In  one  parish  "  the  Ku  Klux  killed 
and  wounded  over  two  hundred  Republicans,  hunting  and 
chasing  them  for  two  days  through  fields  and  swamps." 
"  Over  twenty-five  bodies  were  found  at  one  place  in  the 
woods." 

The  horrors  and  cruelties  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klans  in  Louis 
iana  were  fully  rivalled  in  Mississippi,  and  more  or  less  largely 
sustained  in  each  of  the  Southern  states.  It  is  estimated  by 
persons  well  acquainted  with  the  situation  that  from  forty  to 
fifty  thousand  colored  people,  white  loyalists,  and  Northern 
men  were  murdered  in  cold  blood  during  this  era.  The  blood 

94 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

of  these  martyrs  to  liberty  and  the  Union  cries  out  from  the 
ground ! 

Some  of  the  members  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  were  captured, 
indicted,  and  put  on  trial.  A  number  were  arraigned  before 
the  United  States  Court  in  South  Carolina.  The  white  people 
of  the  state  engaged  the  most  eminent  counsel  for  their  de 
fence.  Their  leading  lawyer  was  the  noted  and  learned  Rev- 
erdy  Johnson  of  Maryland,  who,  after  hearing  the  evidence, 
much  of  it  confessions  by  the  Ku  Klux  themselves,  his  honest 
nature  revolting,  refused  to  make  a  plea  for  his  clients,  but 
left  them  to  the  mercy  of  the  Court,  saying :  "  I  have  listened 
with  unmixed  horror  to  some  of  the  testimony  which  has  been 
brought  before  you.  The  outrages  proved  are  shocking  to 
humanity ;  they  admit  of  neither  excuse  nor  justification ; 
they  violate  every  obligation  which  law  and  nature  impose 
upon  man ;  they  show  that  the  parties  engaged  were  brutes, 
insensible  to  the  obligations  of  humanity  and  religion.  The 
day  will  come,  however,  if  it  has  not  already  arrived,  when 
they  will  deeply  lament  it.  Even  if  justice  shall  not  overtake 
them,  there  is  one  tribunal  from  which  there  is  no  hope.  It 
is  their  own  judgment ;  that  tribunal  which  sits  in  the  breast 
of  every  living  man  ;  that  small,  still  voice  that  thrills  through 
the  heart,  the  soul,  and  the  mind,  and  as  it  speaks  gives  happi 
ness  or  torture  ;  the  voice  of  the  conscience,  the  voice  of  God. 
If  it  has  not  already  spoken  to  them  in  tones  which  have 
startled  them  to  the  enormity  of  their  conduct,  I  trust,  in  the 
mercy  of  Heaven,  that  that  voice  will  speak  before  they  shall 
be  called  above  to  account  for  the  transactions  of  this  world ; 
that  it  will  so  speak  as  to  make  them  penitent,  and  that 
trusting  in  the  dispensations  of  Heaven,  whose  justice  is  dis 
pensed  with  mercy,  when  they  shall  be  brought  before  the 
bar  of  their  great  tribunal,  so  to  speak,  that  incomprehensible 
tribunal,  there  will  be  found  in  the  fact  of  their  penitence  or 
their  previous  lives  some  grounds  upon  which  God  may  say, 
'Pardon/" 

95 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

When  it  is  considered  that  Reverdy  Johnson  was  a  South 
erner  by  birth  and  education,  that  his  sympathies  were 
with  the  Southern  people  in  their  contentions,  and  that  lie 
strongly  opposed  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  and  denounced 
the  great  Reconstruction  Act,  his  language  constitutes  as 
strong  an  indictment  as  can  be  brought  against  a  civilized 
people. 

Governor  Daniel  H.  Chamberlain  of  South  Carolina,  one 
of  the  ablest  of  the  so-called  4<  carpet-baggers,"  in  appealing 
to  President  Grant  for  military  assistance  to  guarantee  a  fair 
and  peaceful  election  in  South  Carolina,  after  detailing  the 
ruthless  slaughter  of  colored  citizens  in  the  Hamburg  riot, 
said  :  "  My  first  duty  is  to  seek  to  restore  and  preserve  public 
peace  and  order,  to  the  end  that  every  man  in  South  Carolina 
may  freely  and  safely  enjoy  all  his  civil  rights  and  privileges, 
including  the  right  to  vote.  .  .  .  But  I  deem  it  my  solemn 
duty  to  do  my  utmost  to  secure  a  fair  and  free  election  in 
this  State,  to  protect  every  man  in  the  free  enjoyment  of  his 
political  rights,  and  to  see  to  it,  that  no  man  or  combination 
of  men  of  any  political  party,  shall  overawe,  or  put  in  fear  or 
danger,  any  citizen  of  South  Carolina,  in  the  exercise  of  his 
civil  rights.  ...  I  understand  that  an  American  citizen  has 
a  right  to  vote  as  he  pleases  ;  to  vote  one  ticket  as  freely  and 
as  safely  as  another ;  .  .  .  and  I  know  that  whenever,  upon 
whatsoever  pretext,  large  bodies  of  citizens  can  be  coerced 
by  force  or  fear  into  absenting  themselves  from  the  polls,  or 
voting  in  a  way  contrary  to  their  judgment  or  inclination, 
the  foundations  of  every  man's  civil  freedom  is  deeply,  if  not 
fatally,  shaken." 

Replying  to  this  letter,  President  Grant  wrote  to  Governor 
Chamberlain  to  go  on  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties,  and  that 
he  would  have  the  full  sympathy  and  co-operation  of  the 
national  government.  Commenting  on  the  general  condi 
tions  prevailing  in  the  South,  General  Grant  used  these  strong 
and  forceful  words  :  "  The  scene  at  Hamburg,  as  cruel,  blood- 

96 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

thirsty,  wanton,  unprovoked,  and  as  uncalled  for  as  it  was,  is 
only  a  repetition  of  the  same  that  has  been  pursued  in  other 
Southern  states  within  the  last  few  years,  notably  in  Missis 
sippi  and  Louisiana.  Mississippi  is  governed  to-day  by  offi 
cials  chosen  through  fraud  and  violence,  such  as  would  scarcely 
be  accredited  to  savages,  much  less  to  a  civilized  and  Christian 
people.  .  .  .  How  long  these  things  are  to  continue,  or  what 
is  to  be  the  final  remedy,  the  Great  Ruler  of  the  Universe 
only  knows.  .  .  .  Nothing  is  claimed  for  one  state  that  is 
not  freely  accorded  to  all  the  others,  unless  it  may  be  the 
right  to  kill  negroes  and  Republicans  without  fear  of  pun 
ishment,  and  without  the  loss  of  caste  or  reputation.  This 
has  seemed  to  be  a  privilege  claimed  by  a  few  states." 

Concerning  the  Ku  Klux  Klan,  it  may  be  said  that  "  mur 
der  with  them  was  an  occupation,  and  perjury  was  a  pastime.1'' 
Many  of  their  bloodiest  and  blackest  crimes  on  the  colored 
people  have  been  sealed  in  the  stillness  of  the  death  of  their 
victims. 

The  Southland  in  some  respects  and  at  many  points  had 
now  become  a  charnel-house  and  chamber  of  horrors.  The 
foul  and  bloody  work  so  relentlessly  carried  on  by  the 
whites,  and  the  general  demoralization  consequent  thereto 
caused  the  Congress  to  divine  that  additional  guarantees  to 
preserve  the  civil  and  political  liberties  of  the  colored  people 
were  necessary.  There  was  no  ground  for  hope  of  just  or 
humane  treatment  for  them  on  the  part  of  the  whites.  Up 
to  this  time  suffrage  rested  in  the  states,  but  the  adoption 
of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  which  was  ratified  March  30,  1870,  made  suffrage 
national  and  impartial. 

So  far  as  the  organic  law  of  the  land  is  concerned,  the 
civil  and  political  rights  of  the  colored  people  are  safe  and 
secure  forevermore.  The  right  of  suffrage  in  this  republic- 
is  now  and  forever  national.  It  is  now  and  forever  im 
partial.  Its  abrogation  is  morally  inconceivable,  practically 
7  97 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

impossible.      The    words    of  this   great   charter   of  liberty 
are: 

"  The  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not 
be  denied  or  abridged  by  the  United  States,  or  by  any  State, 
on  account  of  race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude." 

The  leaders  of  the  South  have  been  protesting  so  loud  and 
long  about  the  "  crime  "  committed  in  this  Reconstruction 
era  that  the  great  masses  of  its  people  have  probably  fully 
persuaded  themselves  that  a  crime  really  was  committed. 
And  because  of  the  bitter  and  continuous  denunciation  of 
"  carpet-baggers,1''  "  scalawags  "  and  "  negro  domination  "  — 
some  good  people  in  the  North,  who  have  not  taken  the 
trouble  to  investigate  the  facts  in  the  case,  have  been  almost 
persuaded  that  a  serious  blunder  was  made  in  the  bestowal 
of  the  ballot  on  the  negro. 

The  Reverend  Dr.  C.  H.  Parkhurst,  a  most  distinguished 
divine  and  the  pastor  of  a  wealthy  and  influential  church  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  representing  this  class,  in  a  public 
address  says  :  "  The  instance  of  the  convict  is  in  principle 
exactly  what  occurred  in  the  case  of  the  blacks.  Emancipa 
tion  pushed  the  bolt  for  them.  There  was  a  great  deal  of 
heroism  in  the  course  of  the  war,  North  and  South,  but  there 
was  not  much  statesmanship  in  the  construction  of  the  peace, 
and  one  of  the  radical  mistakes  made  was  in  supposing  that 
altering  the  colored  man's  condition  altered  the  colored 
man  ;  that  letting  a  wolf  out  of  a  cage  domesticates  the 
wolf;  that  substituting  coat  and  trousers  for  swaddling 
clothes  makes  an  infant  a  man,  and  that  emancipation  not 
only  relieved  the  slave  of  his  fetters,  but  qualified  him  to  be 
a  citizen."  Dr.  Parkhurst  also  says  through  the  public 
press  :  "  Since  my  return  from  the  South,  I  have  been  in 
formed  that  some  of  my  critics  have  accused  me  of  expressing 
regrets  that  slavery  days  are  over.  That  is  not  true.  I 
have  merely  said  that  most  of  the  '  niggers '  are  unfit  for  the 
responsibilities  of  citizenship. 

98 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

"  The  '  niggers  **  will  never  be  assimilated  by  the  nation. 
They  never,  never  will  contribute,  in  any  part,  toward  form 
ing  the  national  type  of  the  Americans  of  the  future.  They 
grow  blacker  and  blacker  every  day.  Their  color  forms  a 
physical  barrier  which  even  time,  the  great  leveller,  cannot 
sweep  away. 

"  Persons  who  talk  of  assimilation  in  connection  with  the 
race  problem  do  not  understand  what  they  speak  of.  Future 
generations  of  our  race  will  be  very  much  as  we  are.  The 
physical  barrier  that  separates  the  blacks  from  the  whites 
to-day  will  be  just  as  broad  and  as  high  throughout  all  the 
centuries  to  come." 

Aside  from  the  unparliamentary  and  unchristian  language 
of  this  minister  of  the  Gospel  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  — 
the  decisive  answer  is  forthcoming  that  the  Proclamation 
of  Amnesty,  pardoning  the  ex-Confederates,  had  quite  as 
little  effect  in  altering  their  condition,  or  lessening  in  the 
least  degree  their  animosities,  or  transforming  them  into 
law-abiding,  liberty-loving,  patriotic  American  citizens  ;  and 
that  moreover  the  ex-Confederates  had  actually  demonstrated 
their  unfitness  to  legislate  with  wisdom,  to  deal  justly  or 
even  humanely  with  either  the  freedmen  or  with  white  men 
who  were  loyal  to  the  Union,  or  to  accept  in  good  faith  the 
clemency  of  a  magnanimous  nation.  And  the  further  argu 
ment  is  conclusive,  that  the  people  of  "  the  North  believed, 
and  believed  wisely,  that  a  poor  man,  an  ignorant  man,  and 
a  black  man  who  was  thoroughly  loyal,  was  a  safer  and  a 
better  voter  than  a  rich  man,  an  educated  man,  and  a  white 
man  who  in  his  heart  was  disloyal  to  the  Union/1 

The  Honorable  Carl  Schurz,  who  was  appointed  by  Presi 
dent  Johnson  after  the  close  of  the  war  as  a  Commissioner 
to  visit  the  South  and  examine  into  and  report  upon  the 
condition  of  things  there,  in  his  report  says :  The  loyalty 
of  the  Southern  people  "  consists  in  submitting  to  necessity." 
There  was  generally  "  an  entire  absence  of  that  national 

99 


THE    AFTERMATH    OP    SLAVERY 

spirit  which  forms  the  basis  of  true  loyalty.  ...  It  will 
hardly  be  possible  to  secure  the  freedmen  against  oppressive 
legislation  and  private  persecution  unless  he  be  endowed 
with  a  certain  measure  of  political  power.  .  .  .  The  exten 
sion  of  the  franchise  to  the  colored  people,  upon  the  develop 
ment  of  free  labor,  and  upon  the  security  of  human  rights  in 
the  South,  being  the  principal  object  in  view,  the  objection 
raised  upon  the  ground  of  the  ignorance  of  the  freedmen 
becomes  unimportant.  .  .  .  The  only  manner  in  which  the 
Southern  people  can  be  induced  to  grant  to  the  freedmen 
some  measure  of  self-protecting  power,  in  the  form  of  suf 
frage,  is  to  make  it  a  condition  precedent  to  readmission." 

Contemplate  this  report,  made  in  1866,  in  the  light  of  the 
attitude  of  the  South  to-day,  with  all  the  wrongs  imposed  on 
the  colored  people,  and  Carl  Schurz  will  at  once  take  rank  as 
a  wise  seer  with  the  gift  of  a  prophet. 

Some  of  Dr.  Parkhurst's  friends  might  do  well  to  inform 
him  that  assimilation  is  not  necessarily  of  blood  ;  that  a 
people  may  thoroughly,  through  the  course  of  the  years, 
assimilate  the  civilization  of  another  people  and  become  a 
most  pronounced  type  of  that  civilization,  and  yet  not  be  of 
the  same  blood.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  assimilation  of  a 
civilization  is  far  more  important  than  the  assimilation  of 
blood.  It  is  the  former,  and  not  the  latter  that  makes  the 
type.  There  are  many  thousands  of  colored  people  in  the 
South  who  have  already  assimilated  American  civilization ; 
who  are  thorough -going,  patriotic,  law-abiding  Americans 
in  every  tissue  and  fibre  of  their  being.  There  are  also  in 
the  South  many  thousands  of  whites  who  are  unassimilated 
and  are  as  alien  to  the  standards  and  ideals  of  American 
civilization  as  if  they  had  not  been  born  and  raised  in  a  land 
where  the  gospel  of  the  Christ  is  preached  from  every  hill 
top  and  in  every  valley,  and  where  the  chief  glory  of  the 
people  is  their  dedication  to  the  principle  that  all  men  are 
equal  before  the  law.  The  color  of  a  man's  skin  can  no 

100 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    IlECONSTH ACTION 

more  affect  "  the  national  type  of  the  American  of  the  future  " 
than  will  the  color  of  his  hair,  the  heaviness  of  his  eyebrows, 
or  the  size  of  his  feet ;  but,  rather,  he  will  be  marked  by  the 
quality  and  achievement  of  his  intellect,  the  purity  and  good 
ness  of  his  heart,  the  nobility  of  his  soul  and  purpose,  the 
strength  and  breadth  of  his  patriotism,  his  loyalty  to  the 
truth  and  to  his  God,  and  his  love  and  services  for  man  — 
not  white  man,  not  black  man,  but  Man.  Race  barrier  or 
no  race  barrier,  he  will  best  represent  the  type  who  best 
represents  the  civilization,  whether  he  be  as  white  as  the 
driven  snow  or  as  black  as  the  ace  of  spades. 

As  to  "  the  national  type  of  the  American  of  the  future," 
the  colored  people  can  well  afford  to  leave  that  in  the  hands 
of  Almighty  God,  whom  Dr.  Parkhurst  may  perhaps  regard 
as  being  abundantly  able  to  rule  over  it  wisely,  beneficently, 
to  the  well-being  of  the  human  family  and  to  His  own  glory 
and  hoi. or.  Dr.  Parkhurst's  ungracious  insult,  unprovoked 
and  unwarranted,  to  the  colored  people  who  have  served 
their  country  nobly  in  war  and  faithfully  and  well  in  peace, 
by  stigmatizing  and  applying  to  the  whole  race  the  offensive 
and  degrading  epithet,  the  "  niggers,"  and  comparing  them 
with  "  convicts  "  and  "  wolves,"  belittles  him  and  impeaches 
his  own  right  to  be  regarded  as  a  consistent  disciple  of 
the  Christ,  or  a  faithful  preacher  of  righteousness.  Much 
learning,  great  eloquence,  and  a  pure  white  skin,  good  and 
helpful  as  they  are,  yet  are  not  the  only  nor  the  chief 
requisites  of  a  Christian  minister.  These,  without  the  spirit 
and  mind  of  the  Christ,  are  "  as  sounding  brass  and  a  tinkling 
cymbal."  Would  it  not  be  a  happy  event  for  Dr.  Parkhurst 
to  go  into  his  closet  and  wrestle  with  his  God,  and  himself 
"assimilate"  the  mind  and  teachings  of  Jesus,  the  Christ; 
giving  heed  to  the  injunction  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  the  great 
apostle  to  the  Gentiles :  "  Let  this  mind  be  in  you,  which 
was  also  in  Christ  Jesus."  Without  this  spirit  all  preaching 
is  in  vain. 

101 


THE.  AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Would  Dr.  Parkhurst  dare  to  apply  offensive  and  degrad 
ing  epithets  to  all  the  white  people  of  the  South  ?  Why  did 
he  gratuitously  and  grossly  insult  every  self-respecting  colored 
man  and  woman  in  the  United  States  ?  He  knew  that  the 
negro  is  prostrate  and  helpless,  and  he  felt  that  he  might 
"  dance  a  jig  "  on  the  negro's  chest  with  entire  safety  to  him 
self.  He  may  continue  his  jig  dancing  on  the  chest  of  the 
prostrate  negro,  but  it  may  yet  come  to  him  that  he  owes 
the  colored  people  —  who  have  never  done  him  aught  of  harm 
and  against  whom  he  has  no  grievance  —  an  apology  for  thus 
stigmatizing  them  ;  and  as  long  as  that  apology  is  withheld 
considerate  thinking  people  not  only  in  the  North  and  South 
but  the  world  over  will  regard  him  as  unmanly,  and  as  not  com 
porting  himself  with  the  dignity  and  honor  of  the  scrupulous 
citizen,  the  punctilious  man,  or  an  ambassador  of  the  Christ. 

No  one  would,  perhaps,  challenge  the  correctness  of  the 
principle  that  wars  are  unusual  occurrences  and  therefore 
they  call  for  the  exercise  of  unusual  powers,  not  only  in  con 
ducting  them  but  also  in  the  settlement  of  complex  and  per 
plexing  questions  growing  out  of  them.  A  nation's  life  or 
sovereignty  is  paramount. 

So  it  was  with  the  Civil  War,  and  so  it  was  with  recon 
struction.  And  with  reference  to  negro  suffrage,  it  is 
all-important  to  consider  the  fundamental  truths  connected 
therewith. 

The  giving  of  the  ballot  to  the  negro  became  the  necessary 
means  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  rehabilitation  of  the 
Southern  states ;  and  the  use  of  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of 
the  negro  was  effective  in  achieving  the  following  results  :  — 

First :    It  established  the  sovereignty  of  the  nation. 

Second :  It  utterly  destroyed  all  that  was  vicious,  mis 
chievous,  and  menacing  in  the  doctrines  of  state  rights. 

Third  :  It  made  effective  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  and 
enacted  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  —  giving  rise  to  the 

102 


SOUTHERN    OPPOSITION    TO    RECONSTRUCTION 

strange  paradox,  unique  in  the  history  of  the  world,  that 
the  ballot  of  the  ex-slave  had  become  necessary  to  save  the 
face  of  a  conquering  nation,  preserve  the  fruits  of  victory, 
and  assist  in  the  enactment  of  laws  which  made  his  own 
freedom  secure  ;  and  it  wrote  his  own  citizenship  inefface- 
ably  into  the  Constitution,  the  organic  law  of  the  land. 

Fourth  :  It  was  effective  in  causing  the  adoption  of  free 
constitutions  for  the  Southern  states,  the  establishment  of 
orderly  government  in  them,  and,  in  a  word,  rehabilitating 
them  and  restoring  them  to  practical  and  proper  relations 
with  the  Union. 

Fifth :  It  gave  the  South  its  first  system  of  Free  Public 
Schools,  a  benefaction  and  blessing  of  incalculable  value. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  too  much  to  say  that  the  glory  and 
the  power  of  the  republic  to-day  —  the  foremost  and  most 
powerful  nation  in  the  world  —  may  be  traced  to  the  effec 
tive  use  of  the  negro  as  a  soldier  and  as  a  voter  in  the 
most  stormy  and  perilous  hour  of  its  existence.  He  was 
unquestionably  the  deciding  factor.  "  The  truth  is  delight," 
and  in  the  light  of  the  truth  these  facts  blaze  forth. 

It  must,  therefore,  appear  evident  to  every  serious,  patri 
otic  American  who  has  more  regard  for  liberty  and  Union 
than  for  race  hatred  and  caste  prejudice,  that  the  bestowal  of 
the  ballot  on  the  colored  people,  under  the  circumstances,  and 
at  the  time,  and  in  the  manner  that  it  was  bestowed,  was  not 
only  not  a  crime,  but,  on  the  contrary,  was  perhaps  the 
sublimest  act  of  enlightened  statesmanship. 

All  the  specious  pleas,  vituperation,  and  misrepresentations 
on  the  part  of  Southern  leaders  and  their  Northern  sym 
pathizers  cannot  efface  or  darken  the  light  of  this  blazing 
truth,  which  shines  forth,  and  will  shine  with  increasing  and 
resplendent  glory  — 

'*  Until  seas  shall  waste, 
And  the  sky  in  smoke  decay. " 

103 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE   WAR  ON   NEGRO   SUFFRAGE 

THE    ballot    in    the  hands  of  the  colored  man  —  this 
is  the  crux  of  the  Southern  problem. 
The  ballot    is   the    citadel   of    the    colored    man's 
safety ;  the  guarantor  of  his  liberty  ;  the   protector  of  his 
rights ;  the  defender  of  his  immunities   and    privileges ;  the 
savior  of  the  fruits  of  his  toil ;  his  weapon  of  offence  and 
defence ;    his    peace    maker ;  his  Nemesis  that  watches   and 
guards  over  him  with  sleepless  eye  by  day  and  by  night. 

With  the  ballot  the  negro  is  a  man ;  an  American  among 
Americans. 

Without  the  ballot  he  is  a  serf,  less  than  a  slave ;  a  thing. 

It  is  not  at  all  singular,  therefore,  that  his  ballot,  this 
fortress  of  his  power,  should  be  beleaguered  and  stormed 
by  all  who  would  oppress,  or  degrade,  or  out-law  him,  or 
alienate  him  from  human  society. 

The  negrophobists  of  the  South  thoroughly  understand 
that,  in  order  to  annul  him  as  a  factor  to  be  reckoned 
with  in  American  life  and  civilization,  his  ballot,  which  keeps 
open  "  the  door  of  hope,  the  door  of  opportunity,"  must 
first  be  demolished. 

For  this  reason  the  dominant  Southern  leaders,  from  the 
reconstruction  day  to  the  present  time,  have  been  discharg 
ing  their  heaviest  artillery,  oratorically  speaking,  at  negro 
suffrage ;  their  Maxim,  machine,  and  Gatling  guns  have  kept 
up  an  incessant  roar,  through  the  public  press,  against 
negro  suffrage ;  their  repeating  rifles  and  small  arms,  through 
stump-speakers  and  otherwise,  have  been  turned  upon  it 
without  intermission.  All  this  has  been  accompanied  by 
the  ruthless  murder  of  many  thousands  of  innocent  colored 
people  as  a  bloody  feint  and  demonstration.  So  common 
has  the  killing  of  colored  people  become  that  the  murder 

104 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

of  half  a  dozen  or  more,  or  the  driving  out  of  a  score,  an 
hundred,  or  even  a  thousand,  from  their  homes,  and  the  loot 
ing  and  burning  of  their  property  provokes  scarcely  more 
than  a  perfunctory  protest  here  and  there  and  fails  to  arouse 
public  attention  in  any  part  of  the  country. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  serious  aspects  of  the  Southern 
question  that  the  determination  to  destroy  the  negroes 
ballot  by  violence  and  keep  the  colored  people  in  subjec 
tion  is  encouraged  by  many  of  its  "  best  citizens."  Senator 
Tillman  of  South  Carolina  has  recently  advocated  the  killing 
of  thirty  thousand  colored  men  in  that  state.  Is  there  not 
"  a  better  way  "  to  secure  good  government  in  South  Caro 
lina?  Is  not  Senator  Tillman  himself  a  greater  menace  to 
all  that  is  decent  in  politics,  orderly  in  government,  laudable 
in  citizenship,  praiseworthy  in  manhood,  pure  in  Christianity, 
and  humane  in  society  than  the  worst  negro  in  his  state  ? 
It  is  not  a  difficult  matter  in  the  South  to  deal  with  a  negro, 
man,  woman,  or  child,  whether  there  are  any  evidences  of 
crime  or  not.  In  public  lectures  Senator  Tillman  has  re 
peatedly  boasted  of  the  part  he  took  in  shooting  down 
"  niggers."  For  instance,  in  a  lecture  in  Detroit,  Michigan, 
he  said  :  "  On  one  occasion  we  killed  seven  niggers ;  I  don't 
know  how  many  I  killed  personally,  but  I  shot  to  kill  and  I 
know  I  got  my  share."  Not  one  of  these  unfortunate  colored 
people  had  committed,  or  had  even  been  charged  with  any 
offence.  They  simply  attempted  to  exercise  their  rights  as 
American  citizens  and  cast  their  ballots.  For  this  they  were 
shot  to  death. 

The  desideratum  of  any  nation  is  good  government  and 
the  preservation  of  liberty.  Sometimes  this  may  be  secured 
by  a  government  of  the  few;  sometimes  by  a  government 
of  the  many ;  and  sometimes  by  a  government  of  the  whole 
people. 

The  special  value  of  republican  institutions  is  that  good 
government  can  be  more  safely  fostered  and  assured  and 

105 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

liberty  made  impregnable  by  a  government  of  the  whole 
people. 

This  does  not  mean  government  by  the  ignorant  and 
vicious,  or  by  revolutionists,  or  by  those  who  believe  in 
killing  negroes  to  get  rid  of  their  votes,  any  more  than  by 
anarchists  who  believe  in  assassinating  rulers  to  get  rid  of 
established  governments.  It  does  mean  the  rule  of  the 
people ;  the  sway  of  their  opinion,  expressed  through  the 
ballot-box,  in  the  establishment  and  enforcement  of  laws 
under  which  all  the  people  shall  find  equal  protection  of  life, 
liberty,  and  property  and  in  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  and  all 
who  measure  up  to  a  fixed  standard,  and  that  a  reasonable 
one,  shall  have  a  common  share  in  the  government. 

It  does  not  follow  that  the  whole  people,  or  even  most 
of  them  will  always  vote  wisely  ;  no,  not  even  in  the  best 
governed  communities.  On  the  contrary,  experience  has 
shown  that  they  have  often  made  serious  mistakes.  But  the 
redeeming  element  in  republican  government  is  that,  despite 
all  defects,  more  of  good  comes  to  the  people,  and  liberty  is 
better  safe-guarded,  when  they  are  collectively  their  own 
master  and  can  elect  rulers  and  enact  laws  at  regular  in 
tervals,  than  by  other  methods  ;  and  that  although  unscru 
pulous  leaders  may  fool  the  people  some  of  the  time, 
they  can't  fool  them  all  the  time.  It  is  not  conceivable 
that  the  body  of  the  white  people  of  the  'South  will  stay 
fooled  all  the  time,  for  this  would  mean  the  failure  of 
civilization. 

The  nobler  and  more  Christian  manhood  and  womanhood 
of  the  South  must  surely  arouse  themselves  and  cast  out  the 
evil  spirits  which  have  possessed  the  corporate  body  dominat 
ing  Southern  life  and  have  produced  the  present  intolerable 
conditions.  Never  among  any  civilized  people  has  there 
existed  a  condition  wherein  oppression  was  so  heartless  and 
wide-spread  ;  the  denial  of  liberty  and  the  simplest  of  human 
rights  so  general;  justice  such  a  mockery;  humiliations  and 

106 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

gross  injustices  so  atrocious ;  withering  wrongs  so  multiplied, 
and  human  life  held  so  cheap.  The  leaders  aim  at  the 
destruction  of  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  the  colored  man,  and, 
as  a  necessary  sequence,  his  elimination  as  an  entity  in  Amer 
ican  life,  his  relegation  to  serfdom. 

To  compass  this  end  the  most  reprehensible  methods  have 
been  employed.  Notwithstanding  the  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  patient  and  profitable  labor  which  the  negro  race 
gave  to  the  South  ;  notwithstanding  the  four  years  of  splen 
did  service  which  they  gave  to  the  whites  in  guarding  their 
families  and  protecting  their  property  during  the  war,  the 
Southern  leaders  have  done  their  utmost  to  prejudice  man 
kind  against  this  race.  They  press  with  great  vigor  and  mal 
evolence  against  the  race  three  specific  charges:  first,  Poverty  ; 
second,  Ignorance ;  third,  Immorality. 

If  it  were  strictly  true  that  the  negro  is  poor,  and  ignorant, 
and  immoral,  this  certainly  is  not  a  sufficient  reason  for  his 
further  debasement ;  it  ought  rather  to  elicit  sympathy  for 
his  misfortune.  For  these  are  not  inherent  qualities  ;  they  are 
incidental  conditions  in  the  evolution  of  a  people.  Outlawry 
is  not  a  remedial  a^ent. 

If  the  white  people  would  respect  and  protect  the  black 
man's  home,  and  set  a  worthy  example  for  him,  reinforce 
the  school  facilities,  and  encourage  the  Church  to  do  its  holy 
work  unfettered,  these  evils  would  largely  disappear. 

If  the  white  people  of  the  South  will  go  back  far  enough 
in  history  they  can  behold  their  race  in  a  far  worse  condition 
than  the  negro  is  to-day.  But  would  that  have  constituted 
a  just  ground  for  their  oppression,  and  denial  of  the  right 
to  rise  to  the  full  height  of  manhood  ?  Even  at  the  present 
time  are  there  not  many  thousands  of  whites  in  the  South, 
who  are  actually  as  poor,  as  ignorant,  as  immoral  as  are  some 
negroes,  and  without  the  excuse  of  the  latter  ?  On  the  other 
hand,  are  there  not  many  thousands  of  negroes,  possessors 
of  property,  who  are  educated  and  clean  in  character  ? 

107 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Not  all  the  unfortunates  and  the  degraded  are  on  the 
negro  side  of  the  race  lines.  The  Southerners  cannot  afford 
to  impeach  the  negro  race  on  these  grounds.  After  de 
spoiling  the  negro  race  absolutely  of  all  the  fruits  of  its  toil 
for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  it  is  not  becoming  for  these 
people  to  taunt  the  negro  with  his  poverty. 

After  enforcing  ignorance  on  the  negro  race  for  two  and 
a  half  centuries,  making  it  a  punishable  offence  for  a  negro 
even  to  be  caught  with  a  spelling-book  in  his  possession, 
these  people  are  not  in  a  position  to  sneer  at  the  negro 
because  of  his  ignorance. 

After  claiming  complete  ownership  of  the  negro  for  eight 
long  generations  and  after  enforcing  on  him  day  by  day 
object  lessons  of  immorality  of  the  most  debasing  kind,  as 
the  enormous  amount  of  Anglo-Saxon  blood  in  negro  veins 
abundantly  testifies,  it  is  the  height  of  inconsistency  for  these 
people  to  reproach  the  negro  race  on  the  ground  of  immoral 
ity.  All  that  is  true  in  these  charges  makes  for  the  greater 
misfortune  of  the  colored  people,  and  for  the  shame  of  the 
whites. 

Colonel  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  in  an  article  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly*  says  :  "  Supposing,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
that  there  is  to  be  found  in  the  colored  race,  especially  in 
the  former  slave  states,  a  lower  standard  of  chastity  than 
among  whites,  it  is  hard  to  imagine  any  reasoning  more 
grotesque  than  that  which  often  comes  from  those  who  claim 
to  represent  the  white  race  there. 

"  For  my  own  part,  I  have  been  for  many  years  in  the 
position  to  know  the  truth,  even  on  its  worst  side,  upon  this 
subject.  Apart  from  the  knowledge  derived  in  college  days 
from  Southern  students,  then  very  numerous  at  Harvard, 
with  whom  I  happened  to  be  much  thrown  through  a  South 
ern  relative,  my  classmate,  I  have  evidence  much  beyond  this. 
I  have  in  my  hands  written  evidence,  unfit  for  publication, 
but  discovered  in  a  captured  town  during  the  Civil  War,  — 

108 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

evidence  to  show  that  Rome  in  its  decline  was  not  more 
utterly  degraded,  as  to  the  relation  between  the  sexes,  than 
was  the  intercourse  often  existing  between  white  men  and 
colored  women  on  American  slave  plantations.  How  could 
it  be  otherwise  where  one  sex  had  all  the  power  and  the 
other  had  no  means  of  escape  ? 

"It  may  be  assumed,  therefore,  that  there  is  no  charge 
more  unfounded  than  that  frequently  made,  to  the  effect  that 
the  negro  was  best  understood  by  his  former  masters.  This 
principle  may  be  justly  borne  in  mind  in  forming  an  opinion 
upon  the  very  severest  charges  still  brought  against  him. 

"  It  was  only  the  Abolitionists  who  saw  him  as  he  was. 
They  never  doubted  that  he  would  have  human  temptations 
—  to  idleness,  folly,  wastefulness,  even  sensuality.  They 
knew  that  he  would  need,  like  any  abused  and  neglected 
race,  education,  moral  instruction,  and,  above  all,  high  ex 
ample.  They  knew,  in  short,  all  that  we  know  about  him 
now.  They  could  have  predicted  the  outcome  of  such  half- 
freedom  as  has  been  given  him,  —  a  freedom  tempered  by 
chain-gangs,  lynching,  and  the  lash/1 

Colonel  Higginson  also  refers  to  Rufus  Choate  as  among 
the  most  conservative  men  of  his  time  and  quotes  him  as 
saying  that,  "  for  the  colored  woman,  the  condition  of  slavery 
was  '  simply  hell.1 "" 

It  is  instructive  to  note  certain  stock  phrases  in  use  in  the 
South,  phrases  that  are  used  with  the  purpose  of  increasing 
race  animosities.  Among  these  are  "  social  equality,11  "  white 
man's  country,11  "  negro  inferiority,11  u  negro  domination,11 , 
"race  prejudice.11  Such  phrases  are  "the  bloody  shirt "  of 
the  South.  Their  effect  has  been  to  nullify,  for  the  time 
being,  the  benefits  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States. 

Since  these  are  weapons  aimed  at  the  ballot  of  the  negro 
they  invite  close  examination.  Race  prejudice  is  the  most 
elastic  of  them.  It  can  and  does  cover  a  multitude  of  sins. 

109 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

The  leaders  depend  much  upon  it.  Senator  Money  of 
Mississippi,  in  a  speech  in  the  United  States  Senate,  declared 
with  great  bravado,  "  I  am  glad  we  have  race  prejudice,  I 
rejoice  in  it,  I  thank  God  for  it."  But  the  Holy  Scriptures 
tell  of  a  Pharisee  who  lived  some  centuries  before  him  who 
was  also  glad  and  thanked  God  that  he  was  not  as  other  men. 
The  Saviour  of  the  world,  however,  did  not  send  him  away 
justified. 

Race  prejudice  is  variously  designated,  and  is  thus  made 
into  a  handy  five-chamber  weapon.  Sometimes  it  is  called 
inborn  race  prejudice,  and  then  again  it  is  labelled  inbred ; 
and  some  declare  it  is  taken  in  with  the  mothers  milk,  while 
others  heatedly  contend  that  it  is  an  instinct ;  but  all  agree 
that  it  is  ineradicable  and  must  therefore  control  in  Southern 
life. 

This  inborn,  inbred,  motherVmilk,  instinctive,  ineradi 
cable  race  prejudice  is  set  forth  as  the  chief,  and  sometimes 
as  the  sufficient  cause  for  the  mistreatment  of  the  colored 
people,  and  the  denial  to  them  of  civil  and  political  rights 
and  the  protection  of  the  law. 

The  New  York  World  says  :  "  Deeper  than  the  question 
of  suffrage,  of  education,  or  of  political  privilege  is  this  ques 
tion  of  "racial  instinct"  or  prejudice.  If  it  is  to  prevail 
and  dominate  our  land,  where  is  it  to  stop?  Is  it  compatible 
with  the  precepts  of  a  religion  based  upon  '  the  fatherhood 
of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man '  ?  Can  it  be  reconciled 
with  the  principles  of  a  government  founded  upon  the 
'  inalienable  rights '  of  all  men,  and  ordaining  in  its  Con 
stitution  equal  rights  and  equal  privileges  for  equal  citizens  ? 
If,  for  example,  Booker  Washington,  with  his  heart  and 
brain  and  capacity  for  elevating  his  race,  cannot  enter  the 
front  door  of  the  White  House  without  arousing  a  clamor 
of  unreasonable  protest,  or  hold  any  public  office,  simply  and 
solely  because  he  is  black,  is  not  the  republic  a  mockery  to 
nine  millions  of  its  citizens  ? 

110 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

"  There  was  something  more  than  rhetoric  or  sentiment  in 
President  Roosevelt^s  pregnant  phrase,  '  the  door  of  hope ' 
for  the  negro.  When  this  door  leads  to  education,  to  in 
dustry,  thrift,  and  the  patriotism  that  inspires  men  to  fight 
and  die  for  their  country,  as  our  negroes  did  in  Cuba,  must 
the  usual  rewards  of  such  character  and  conduct  be  denied 
to  them  because  they  are  black  ?  This  is  the  real  '  negro 
question.1 " 

The  contention  for  inborn,  inbred,  motherVmilk,  instinctive, 
ineradicable  race  prejudice  is  itself  not  only  dangerous  to  the 
social  organism,  but  it  is  also  fallacious.  It  lacks  the  saving 
grace  of  even  a  half-truth.  It  is  a  Gibraltar  of  straw  to  be 
destroyed  by  the  first  volley  from  the  battery  of  Common- 
Sense. 

In  the  darkest  day  of  slavery,  the  colored  children  of 
household  and  other  servants  played  and  romped  freely  with 
the  children  of  the  masters  ;  they  as  freely  took  "  bites  "  in 
turn  from  the  same  apple,  and  sometimes  from  the  same 
cherry.  They  never  knew  the  difference  in  station  except  as 
they  were  taught.  The  colored  nurse  would  shower  her 
kisses  on  the  white  child,  cool  its  food  with  her  breath,  and 
taste  it  with  her  tongue.  The  important  question  with  the 
parents  was  not  the  race  or  color,  but  the  health  of  the 
nurse.  Nurses  frequently  slept  with  the  children,  and  cared 
for  them  with  a  tenderness  and  devotion  which  won  their 
affections  forevermore.  Many  were  the  instances  in  which 
the  white  child  showed  preference  for  the  attendance  and 
companionship  of  the  colored  nurse  to  that  of  the  white 
mother.  And  this  is  not  unusual  even  to-day. 

Kindness  wins,  and  always  will  win  the  hearts  and  confi 
dence  of  children  without  regard  to  race  prejudice  of  which 
they  know  nothing  and  care  less.  Many  of  the  very  best 
white  women  in  the  South  never  failed  to  bestow  praises  and 
kisses  on  their  black  "  mammies "  who  had  fondled  them  in 
childhood,  and  whom  they  loved  and  venerated. 

Ill 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

More  significant  still,  many  of  the  children  of  the  leading 
Southern  families  drank  the  milk  of  their  black  "mammies'1 
alone  ;  and  many  in  maturity,  like  the  late  Henry  W.  Grady 
of  Atlanta,  Georgia,  never  ceased  to  express  their  love  and 
veneration  for  these  black  "  mammies  "  who  nursed  them  with 
a  mother's  solicitude  and  guided  their  early  footsteps.  If 
race  prejudice  is  an  instinct,  inborn,  and  inbred,  how  could 
the  whites  drink  and  thrive  on  the  milk  of  these  black 
"  mammies  "  in  childhood,  and  in  the  maturity  of  manhood 
and  womanhood  lavishly  display  such  glowing  respect  and 
devotion  to  these  black  "mammies'"? 

There  are  numbers  of  authenticated  cases  of  white  children 
being  raised  entirely  by  colored  families,  who  never  recog 
nized  any  difference  between  themselves  and  the  colored 
children,  notwithstanding,  "  inborn,  inbred "  race  prejudice. 
For  obvious  reasons  they  had  been  given  over  to  colored 
"  mammies  "  to  be  raised,  and  they  were  most  happy  in  these 
relations  during  childhood ;  and  in  maturity,  when  apprised 
of  their  identity  and  offered  privileges,  some  of  them  in 
dignantly  refused  to  give  up  their  colored  "mammies'"  who 
had  always  shown  them  a  mother's  care,  fidelity,  and  love. 
Some  such  continued  to  live,  and  married,  among  the  colored 
people,  and  became  to  all  intents  members  of  that  race. 

The  case  is  too  plain  for  cavil  that  any  white  child  raised 
entirely  in  a  colored  family  may  grow  to  old  age  without 
recognizing  its  race  identity.  And  the  prejudice  would  be 
against  the  whites,  and  not  the  colored.  How  is  it  to  be 
explained  that  this  "inborn,  inbred,  motherVmilk,  instinctive, 
ineradicable"  race  prejudice  does  not  reveal  itself  to  its  own 
possessor  ?  And  it  may  be  pertinently  asked,  of  what  value 
is  it  if  it  cannot  reveal  itself? 

Conductors  of  railway  trains  and  street  cars  in  the  South 
are  of  course  supposed  to  have  this  race  prejudice,  and  they 
are  paid  to  enforce  it.  But  they  have  repeatedly  caused 
awkward  and  sometimes  ugly  situations  by  mistaking  white 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

persons  for  colored  persons  and  colored  persons    for  white 
persons  —  producing  a  "comedy  of  errors." 

Race  or  color  does  not  necessarily  affect  the  peace  or  happi 
ness  of  a  child,  or  of  an  adult.  Men  and  women  of  different 
races  have  mutually  reciprocated  good  offices  and  enjoyed 
friendly  relations,  cherishing  the  highest  respect  for  each 
other ;  while  men  and  women  of  the  same  race,  sometimes  of 
the  same  family,  have  despised  one  another.  The  white  child 
smiles  as  radiantly  with  the  colored  coachman  or  gardener  as 
with  its  father.  It  will  coo  alike  to  its  father,  the  colored 
nurse,  the  cat,  or  rubber  doll. 

Race  prejudice  is  largely  a  matter  of  teaching  and  training. 
Any  people  can  teach  their  children  to  hate  or  despise  an 
other  people,  or  even  to  hate  and  despise  a  branch  of  the 
family  of  their  own  blood  relations.  Also  parents  can  indoc 
trinate  the  young  in  the  principles  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  and  the  teachings  of  the  lowly  Nazarene,  and  the 
result  will  be  as  different  as  day  from  night. 

Again,  there  are  other  cases,  fully  authenticated,  of  per 
sons  possessing  African  blood  and  yet  passing  for  white. 
Some  are  doing  so  to-day  in  the  North  as  well  as  in  the 
South. 

It  is  a  great  pity  —  a  lamentable  evil  —  that  race  preju 
dice  should  so  operate  as  to  compel  a  man  to  conceal  his  race 
identity,  and  pose  as  a  member  of  another  race  in  order  to 
secure  fair  or  decent  treatment  or  a  chance  to  make  an  honest 
living.  In  this  particular  race  prejudice  not  only  harms  the 
negro,  but  it  injures  the  entire  social  organism.  It  is  most 
creditable  to  the  negro  race,  to  their  growing  self-respect  and 
race  pride  that  only  a  few  of  their  numbers  in  sheer  despera 
tion  resort  to  the  trick  of  passing  for  what  they  are  not.  It 
should  be  noted  in  this  connection  that  in  South  Carolina 
and  other  Southern  states  there  are  certain  settlements  of 
persons  possessing  African  blood  who,  nevertheless,  are  not 
treated  as  a  part  of  the  black  race,  but  as  whites.  When 
8  113 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

they  remove  away  from  their  homes,  passing  for  whites,  they 
live  and  move  among  whites  and  even  marry  among  them. 
And  no  one  is  the  wiser. 

Senator  Tillman  on  the  floor  of  the  Constitutional  Conven 
tion  of  South  Carolina,  more  specifically  called  for  the  purpose 
of  disfranchising  the  colored  people,  made  a  special  plea  for 
these  particular  settlements  of  people  with  African  blood  in 
that  state,  but  who  were  passing  for  and  accepted  as  white 
people,  saying  :  "  Some  of  them  owned  slaves  before  the  war, 
all  of  them  sympathized  with  the  Confederacy,  and  many  of 
them  fought  in  its  army ;  therefore  they  should  be  regarded 
and  treated  as  whites."  Is  this  not  a  cruel  blow  to  "  inborn, 
inbred,  motherVmilk,  instinctive,  ineradicable "  race  preju 
dice?  Does  not  the  logic  of  it  expose  the  fallacy  of  the 
contention  ? 

The  whole  case  falls  to  the  ground ;  for  here  the  "  ineradi 
cable  "  is  eradicated.  But  Senator  Tillman's  specious  plea  is 
worthy  of  more  than  a  casual  glance.  Those  for  whom  and 
in  whose  interest  he  made  it  were  admittedly  colored  people, 
possessing  African  blood.  But  they  in  most  instances  were 
set  free  by  their  white  fathers  before  the  war  of  the  Rebel 
lion  ;  and  some  of  them  inherited  their  father's  slaves  and 
thus  became  slave  owners.  They  intermarried  among  white 
and  colored ;  and  because  some  of  them  were  slave  owners, 
and  because  all  of  them  sympathized  with  the  Southern  Con 
federacy,  and  because  many  of  them  fought  in  the  Confeder 
ate  army,  —  therefore  all  of  them  were  transformed  from 
"niggers"  into  white  folks. 

Here  is  the  plain  enunciation  of  the  doctrine  that  loyalty 
to  the  late  Confederacy  shall  count  as  paramount  in  fixing 
the  status  of  citizenship  in  the  South,  and  can  even  metamor 
phose  a  "  nigger  "  into  a  white  man. 

But  there  were  four  millions  of  other  colored  people  who 
were  "  true-hearted,  whole-hearted,  faithful,  and  loyal "  to 
the  Union  and  responsive  to  its  martial  music.  None  of  these 

114 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

owned  slaves  ;  all  of  these  sympathized  with  the  Union  ;  and, 
momentous  fact,  200,000  of  these  rushed  to  the  national 
defence  and  faced  the  chivalry  of  the  South. 

Shall  not  the  republic  show  as  much  concern  in  the  pro 
tection  of  the  lives  and  liberty  of  those  who  freely  offered 
themselves  on  its  altar  as  the  ex-Confederates  and  their  sons 
show  in  protecting  the  handful  of  mixed-bloods  who  joined 
with  th9in  in  the  effort  to  "  shoot  the  government  to  death  ?  " 

The  "  motherVmilk,  instinct,"  argument  to  bolster  up  race 
prejudice  is  worthless.  Instinct  acts  spontaneously,  and  not 
by  promptings  ;  naturally,  and  not  by  moral  force  or  suasion  ; 
independently,  uniformly  ;  it  peremptorily  rejects  the  incom 
patible.  But  there  has  been  no  uniformity  of  race  prejudice 
in  the  South  against  the  colored  people.  On  the  contrary, 
there  have  been  many  relations,  in  some  cases  of  the  closest 
kind. 

The  deplorable  conditions  existing  in  the  South  are  not 
natural  or  spontaneous,  but  artificial.  They  are  the  direct 
result  of  the  vicious  and  mischievous  teachings  of  the  leaders. 
As  to  the  "  mothers-milk "  end  of  the  argument,  this  is 
sure  to  put  some  veiy  good  Southerners  into  a  very  bad 
dilemma.  For  if  "  logic  is  logic,"  the  prejudice  should  trend 
in  favor  of  the  source  of  the  milk.  Natural-motherVmilk 
prejudice  should  be  in  favor  of  the  natural  mother. 

u  Black-mammy's  "-milk  prejudice  should  be  in  favor  of  the 
"black  mammy." 

CowVmilk  prejudice  should  be  in  favor  of  the  cow. 

Goafs- milk  prejudice  should  be  in  favor  of  the  goat. 

No  milk,  then  no  prejudice. 

And  as  to  "  Prepared  Food,"  "  that  is  the  question  "  which 
will  command  all  the  acumen  and  store  of  legal  lore  of  the 
proverbial  Philadelphia  lawyer  to  solve,  as  to  whether  prej 
udice  should  run  in  favor  of  some  one  manufacturer,  or 
what  particular  component  element  of  his  "Food." 

"Logic  is  logic,"  —  that  is  all. 

115 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

It  is  plain,  however,  that  the  milk  or  other  food  which 
nourishes  the  child  has  no  more  to  do  in  creating  race  prej 
udice  in  the  child  than  corned  beef  and  cabbage,  the  juicy 
bivalves,  Boston  baked  beans,  or  Chinese  "  Chop  Suey  "  have 
in  producing  race  prejudice  in  the  full-grown  man. 

Ineradicable,  race  prejudice  !  What  hypocrisy  !  A  greater 
proportion  than  three  out  of  every  five  negroes  met  casually 
in  the  street  or  seen  in  public  gatherings  will  show  traces  of 
Anglo-Saxon  blood. 

A  matter  of  very  great  importance  and  one  not  to  be  over 
looked  herewith  is  that  the  negro  race  in  the  United  States 
is  practically  a  new  race.  The  race  in  America  is  far  removed 
from  the  ancestral  African  —  in  language,  in  method  of 
thought,  in  religion  and  civilization.  Its  basic  element  is  in 
the  strong  and  virile  blood  of  the  fatherland,  but  built  upon 
by  the  blood  of  all  the  great  races.  It  is  sure  to  become  a 
strong  and  powerful  people  in  the  future.  It  will  not  seek 
close  affiliations  with  the  white  race,  for  the  reason  that  it 
will  have  all  the  colors  and  blendings  of  every  race  within 
itself,  from  the  fairest  Caucasian  to  the  darkest  ebony  —  mak 
ing  it  truly  the  Colored  Race.  As  a  rule,  the  law  of  race 
pride  and  clan  allegiance  will  be  the  law  of  natural  selection. 
To  the  simple  question  of  prejudice  no  great  importance  is 
to  be  attached.  The  history  of  ages  record  its  existence. 
There  is  abundant  prejudice  between  white  and  white ; 
colored  and  colored  ;  white  and  colored ;  English  and  Irish ; 
French  and  German ;  English  and  French ;  Irish  and  Ger 
man  ;  and  the  Jews  and  the  rest  of  the  world. 

But  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  is  prejudice  and 
prejudice.  Every  man  has  prejudices  ;  and  these  may  control 
his  personal  habits,  his  recreations,  his  associations,  his  friend 
ships,  his  politics,  his  religion,  and  all  his  relations  of  life.  He 
may  wear  shoes  without  socks,  or  go  barefoot  if  his  prejudices 
lead  him  to  do  so ;  but  he  would  not  be  tolerated  if  he  tried 
to  compel  a  neighbor  to  become  a  "  Sockless  Simpson."  The 

116 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

white  people  of  the  South  are  at  liberty  to  have  and  to  hold 
their  prejudices  against  the  colored  people  or  against  Yankees ; 
and  against  this  liberty  it  is  not  for  public  opinion  to  protest 
nor  for  the  government  to  make  objection. 

To  eliminate  prejudice  from  the  hearts  of  men  and  emanci 
pate  the  people  from  its  evil  effects  is  a  work  generally  dele 
gated  to  the  doctrinaires  of  religion.  But  when  the  white 
people  of  the  South  convert  their  prejudice  into  an  engine  of 
hostility,  a  force  of  oppression  and  destruction  to  others,  it 
then  becomes  the  imperative  duty  of  public  opinion  to  protest, 
and  the  obligation  of  the  government  to  intervene. 

The  Honorable  Carl  Schurz,  writing  in  McClure's  Magazine^ 
referring  to  this  attempt  to  subjugate  the  negro  race,  says : 
"  And  now  the  reactionists  are  striving  again  to  burden  the 
Southern  people  with  another  'peculiar  institution,'  closely 
akin  to  its  predecessor  in  character,  as  it  will  be  in  its  inevitable 
effects  if  fully  adopted  by  the  Southern  people,  —  that  is,  if 
the  bulk  of  the  laboring  class  is  again  to  be  kept  in  stupid 
subjection,  without  the  hope  of  advancement  and  without  the 
ambition  of  progress.  For,  as  the  old  pro-slavery  man  was  on 
principle  hostile  to  general  negro  education,  so  the  present 
advocate  of  semi-slavery  is  perfectly  logical  in  his  contempt 
for  the  general  education  of  the  colored  people,  and  in  his 
desire  to  do  away  with  the  negro  school.  What  the  reactionist 
really  wants  is  a  negro  just  fit  for  the  task  of  a  plantation  hand 
and  for  little,  if  anything,  beyond. 

"  Therefore,  quite  logically,  the  reactionist  abhors  the  edu 
cated  negro.  In  fact  the  political  or  social  recognition  of  the 
educated  negro  is  especially  objectionable  to  him  for  the 
simple  reason  that  it  would  be  an  encouragement  of  higher 
aspirations  among  the  colored  people  generally. 

"  The  reactionist  wishes  to  keep  the  colored  people,  that 
is,  the  great  mass  of  the  laboring  force  in  the  South  as  igno 
rant  as  possible,  to  the  end  of  keeping  it  as  submissive  and 
obedient  as  possible.  .  .  .  And  now  imagine  the  moral,  intel- 

117 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

lectual,  and  economic  condition  of  a  community  whose  prin 
cipal  and  most  anxious  —  I  might  say  historic  —  care  is  the 
solution  of  the  paramount  problem  4  how  to  keep  the  nigger 
down,1  —  that  is,  to  reduce  a  large  part  of  its  laboring  popu 
lation  to  stolid  brutishness.  .  .  .  That  is  not  all.  The  reac 
tionist  fiercely  insists  that  the  South  '  must  be  let  alone 7  in 
dealing  with  the  negro. 

"  This  was  the  cry  of  the  pro-slavery  men  of  the  old  ante 
bellum  time.  But  the  American  people  outside  of  the  South 
took  a  lively  interest  in  the  matter,  and  finally  the  South  was 
not  let  alone,  .  .  .  they  can  hardly  hope  to  be  '  let  alone.' 
Thus  it  may  be  said  without  exaggeration  that  by  striving  to 
keep  up  in  the  Southern  States  a  condition  of  things  which 
cannot  fail  to  bring  forth  constant  irritation  and  unrest, 
which  threatens  to  burden  the  South  with  another  '  peculiar 
institution '  by  making  the  bulk  of  its  laboring  force  again  a 
clog  to  progressive  development,  —  and  to  put  the  South  once 
more  in  a  position  provokingly  offensive  to  the  moral  sense 
and  the  enlightened  spirit  of  the  world  outside,  —  the  reac 
tionists  are  the  worst  enemies  the  Southern  people  have  to 
fear." 

The  white  people  of  the  South  would  hotly  resent  any  sug 
gestion  of  their  incapacity  for  self-government.  But  their 
policy  is  their  own  condemnation.  For  if  they  cannot  rise 
above  the  low  level  of  race  prejudice  and  vulgar  assumptions 
in  the  making  and  the  enforcement  of  the  law,  is  it  not  self- 
evident  that  they  fail  in  the  vital  requisites  and  capacity  for 
self-government?  A  people  who  cannot,  or  will  not,  main 
tain  orderly  government  in  their  local  affairs  invite  distrust 
in  broader  or  national  affairs.  The  law  of  the  spiritual  life 
prevails  here,  —  he  who  is  faithful  over  a  few  things  shall  be 
made  ruler  over  "  many  things." 

The  republic  is  governed  by  law,  and  not  by  race  preju 
dice.  Race  prejudice  is  not  law.  Its  operation  is  akin  to 
anarchy.  To  give  it  the  sanction,  prestige,  and  force  of  law 

118 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

is  to  subvert  American  institutions  and  to  destroy  liberty  and 
civilization.  The  result  is  certain.  If  once  justified  as  law, 
where  and  when  is  it  to  end  ?  If  the  colored  people  are  to 
be  the  victims  of  it  to-day,  who  are  to  feel  its  fell  and  ruinous 
blow  to-morrow  ?  Shall  liberty,  truth,  and  righteousness  be 
sacrificed  to  race  prejudice?  Is  race  prejudice  everything, 
and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  the  laws  of 
God  nothing? 

Good  citizenship  measures  up  to  the  Constitution.  The 
Constitution  does  not  and  cannot  contract  to  the  narrow 
confines  of  local  prejudices,  "inborn,  inbred,"  or  otherwise; 
for  this  would  mean  the  ruin  of  all  that  has  been  gained,  as 
well  as  all  that  is  hoped  for  in  the  evolution  of  man  and  the 
march  of  civilization. 

When  the  white  people  of  the  South  set  themselves  delib 
erately  and  with  the  purpose  aforethought  to  the  work  of 
reducing  the  colored  race,  as  Mr.  Schurz  says,  "  to  stolid 
brutishness,"  and  keep  them  "in  stupid  subjection  without 
the  hope  of  advancement  and  the  ambition  of  progress,1'  and 
plead  as  a  justification  therefor  "  inborn,  inbred,  motherV 
milk,  instinctive,  ineradicable"  race  prejudice,  they  trans 
gress  against  the  moral  sentiment  of  Christendom. 

That  they  should  demand  that  the  strong  arm  of  the  Fed 
eral  government  shall  be  brought  into  requisition  to  aid  them 
in  consummating  so  diabolical  a  work  by  turning  every  col 
ored  person  out  of  every  Federal  office,  and  discharging  every 
colored  man  from  the  army  and  navy,  and  forcing  every 
colored  person  into  inferior  relations  in  every  walk  of  life 
and  into  serfdom,  —  this  but  accentuates  the  folly  and  frenzy 
which  has  possessed  the  head  and  heart  of  the  South.  That 
the  white  people  of  the  South  are  practically  united  in 
this  reactionary,  an ti -Christian  policy  does  not  lessen  its 
heinousness. 

That  some  well-meaning  men  in  the  North  look  upon  it  with 
sympathy  or  approval  does  not  add  one  glimmer  of  virtue  to 

119 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

it.  By  condoning  oppression  and  outlawry,  such  apologists 
encourage  further  disorders  and  violence.  The  policy  of  the 
South  is  wrong.  No  number  of  adherents  and  advocates  for 
it  can  make  it  right.  Its  consummation  in  the  dawn  of  the 
twentieth  century  and  after  forty  years  of  heroic  struggle 
against  the  most  tremendous  odds,  and  in  the  light  of  the 
wonderful,  unsurpassed  progress  and  achievements  of  the 
negro  race  in  civilization, —  would  be  the  crime  of  these 
centuries. 

God  Almighty  did  not  grant  to  the  white  people  of  the 
South  a  perpetual  lien  on  the  labor  and  toils  of  the  colored 
people,  nor  the  right  to  rule,  oppress,  and  outrage  them  to 
their  hearts'  content.  If  the  whole  South  approves,  then  the 
whole  South  is  wrong.  But  the  evidence  is  not  conclu 
sive  that  the  whole  South  does  approve.  There  are  more 
than  murmurs  of  emphatic  dissent  from  many  noble-hearted 
Southerners,  who  see  the  blistering  disgrace  and  burning 
shame  which  overshadow  their  fair  land  and  discredit  its 
civilization.  But,  at  any  rate,  even  the  whole  South  should 
not  be  permitted  to  commit  the  republic  to  the  nefarious 
policy  of  destroying  the  hope  of  millions  of  its  own  citizens. 
Many  people  who  approved  of  slavery,  endorsed  the  hanging 
of  John  Brown  whose  "soul  goes  marching  on,"  and  ac 
claimed  secession  with  joy  and  enthusiasm,  now  regret  with 
pangs  indescribable  the  existence  of  one  and  the  occurrence 
of  the  others. 

Some  good  men  have  gone  wrong  on  every  great  moral 
issue  of  the  past,  and  some  good  men  are  sure  to  go  wrong 
on  every  great  moral  question  of  the  future.  This  seems  to 
be  inevitable.  But  in  the  end  the  Right  will  win.  The 
Right  leads  the  trek  of  humanity,  and  God  leads  the  Right. 
Furthermore,  the  white  people  of  the  South  themselves  dis 
play  grave  suspicions  of  the  durability  of  this  race  prejudice. 
If  this  prejudice  is  all  that  they  claim,  why  is  it  necessary 
to  hedge  it  about,  buttress  it  around,  prop  it  up,  shield  it 

120 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

over,  and  hostile  it  over  with  prescriptive,  oppressive,  and 
unlawful  laws?  Why  inaugurate  a  reign  of  terror  and 
bloodshed  to  cultivate  it? 

After  all,  to  every  serious  American  it  will  be  manifest 
that  all  the  smoke  and  noise  and  deadly  work  of  this  five- 
barrel  weapon  —  this  " inborn,  inbred,  mothers-milk,  in 
stinctive,  ineradicable"  race  prejudice  —  are  intended  to  cover 
the  enactment  of  a  tragedy  in  the  Southland  :  the  over 
throw  of  the  ballot  of  the  colored  man,  the  despoiling  and 
subjugation  of  a  people. 

The  Reverend  Dr.  Newell  Dwight  Hillis,  who  fills  the 
Plymouth  pulpit  at  Brooklyn,  New  York,  made  famous  by 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  in  a  recent  sermon  said  :  "  Just  now 
the  whole  country  is  suffering  from  a  reaction  on  the  negro 
question,  and  the  colored  race  have  known  a  month  of  such 
depression  and  sorrow  and  heartache  as  they  have  not  known 
in  forty  vears  —  and  there  is  reason  for  the  depression. 
Consider  the  Presbyterian  preacher  in  New  York  who  last 
week  said  that  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  was  like  the 
release  of  criminals  from  the  penitentiary,  and  that  the 
future  of  the  'nigger1  was  blacker  and  blacker  and  more 
hopeless.  Consider  that  editorial  in  the  Richmond  paper 
that,  commenting  on  the  speech  of  a  Southerner  and  of  a 
great  religious  editor  in  New  York,  said  that  the  two  men 
evidently  might  have  exchanged  addresses.  Think  of  the 
Southern  soldier  who  insists  in  his  article  that  the  negro  is 
an  animal ;  that,  like  the  dog  and  horse,  he  has  by  associa 
tion  borrowed  some  of  man's  characteristics,  but  that  he  is 
without  soul,  and  that  he  fears  like  the  animal  and  never 
can  have  a  home. 

"  In  1866  Mr.  Beecher  said  here  that  we  must  insist  on 
suffrage  for  the  negro ;  that  races,  like  children,  are  trained 
by  responsibility  ;  that  the  poorest  government  of  an  ignorant 
man  who  governs  himself  is  better  than  the  best  government 
that  is  imposed  upon  him  from  without.  Mr.  Beecher  also 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

said  that  in  view  of  two  centuries  of  injustice  and  slavery  it 
might  take  a  century  before  we  would  see  the  outcropping  of 
an  occasional  orator,  an  occasional  colored  educator.  What 
if  Mr.  Beecher  could  return  to-day  ?  He  would  find  that 
the  greatest  orator,  from  many  points  of  view,  in  the  country 
is  a  negro,  and  a  black  man  to-day  receives  $150  to  $300  a 
night,  and  there  is  only  one  other  man  in  the  country  who 
receives  as  much. 

"  The  colored  people  are  needlessly  alarmed.  The  reaction 
is  an  eddy  from  the  South  itself.  All  the  enemies  of  liberty, 
whether  they  want  to  or  not,  have  to  help  the  forces  of 
liberty." 

True  words  these  !  "  All  the  enemies  of  liberty,  whether 
they  want  to  or  not,  have  to  help  the  forces  of  liberty.'" 
The  violent  outburst  of  Southern  wrath  on  the  colored 
people  and  the  extreme  and  cruel  persecution  of  them  "  will 
help  the  forces  of  liberty. "  Intended  for  evil,  they  "  will 
work  together  for  good.''1  These  things  will  not  be  without 
value  as  an  object  lesson  exposing  the  mind  and  purpose  of 
the  South, —  an  object  lesson  of  which  the  nation  will  not 
fail  to  take  note ;  an  object  lesson  which  will  serve  to  rally 
"  the  forces  of  liberty,"  and  assure  the  decisive  defeat  of  the 
conspiring  "  enemies  of  liberty." 

A  white  man's  country  !  This  phrase  is  often  pressed 
into  service,  and  it  has  the  effect  chiefly  of  exciting  race 
intolerance.  It  has  been  used  with  great  detriment  to 
the  colored  people,  causing  many  of  them  to  be  driven 
from  their  homes  ;  and  some  to  be  killed  because  they  stood 
on  the  principle  that  "  a  man's  home  is  his  castle." 

It  would  deny  them  the  right  of  domicile  on  American 
soil.  And  if  they  have  not  the  right  of  domicile,  it  would 
follow  that  they  have  not  the  right  of  citizenship  nor  the 
ballot,  nor  the  protection  of  the  law.  It  would  place 
the  race  in  the  position  of  interlopers,  subject  to  expul 
sion  at  the  whim  of  any  party,  at  any  place  or  at  any 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

time,  or   to  be   driven   helter-skelter  by  the   blind   fury  of 
the  mob. 

A  little  incident,  indeed  a  very  little  one,  occurred  recently 
at  Washington  City,  which  throws  a  flood  of  light  on 
this  pretension  and  dissolves  its  logic.  It  happened  in 
this  wise  :  A  prominent  Indian  chief  went  from  the  Western 
prairies  to  visit  the  President  at  the  White  House.  He  was 
received  and  entertained  in  the  cordial  and  hearty  manner 
characteristic  of  Mr.  Roosevelt.  The  Indian  chief  was 
greatly  delighted.  After  the  conference  with  the  Great 
Father,  he  left  the  White  House  and  soon  after  this  en 
countered  a  leading  Southerner.  In  the  conversation  which 
followed,  the  Southerner  inquired  of  the  Indian  chief  if 
he  did  not  think  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  send  all  the 
negroes  back  to  Africa.  Without  a  moment's  hesitation 
the  great  chief  bluntly  replied,  "  Yes,  all  the  negroes  ought 
to  be  sent  back  to  Africa,"  and  added  with  true  Indian 
sternness,  "and  all  the  Chinese  to  China,  and  all  the 
Germans  to  Germany,  and  all  the  French  to  France,  and 
all  the  English  to  England,  and  all  the  Italians  to  Italy  ; 
and  all  the  other  people  too  should  be  sent  back  to  their 
own  countries,  and  America  should  be  given  back  to  the 
Indians  to  whom  it  rightfully  belongs."" 

This  was  truly  a  rebuff  to  the  Southerner.  He  got  his 
answer,  and  with  it  a  corollary  which  he  had  not  expected. 
He  found  that  the  Indian  chief  was  no  respecter  of  persons. 
The  rugged  common-sense,  the  innate  honesty,  and  the  irre 
sistible  logic  of  the  answer  of  this  noble  son  of  the  plains  will 
be  applauded  by  every  one.  And  the  probability  is  that  the 
Southern  leaders  will  attain  as  little  success  in  proving  at  the 
bar  of  public  opinion  that  the  colored  people  have  no  right  to 
a  domicile  in  this  country  as  this  particular  Southerner  had 
in  demonstrating  it  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Indian  chief. 

As  a  matter  of  history  the  white  Southerners  have  barely 
eight  years  of  priority  on  American  soil  over  the  colored 

123 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Southerners.  So  that  if  the  colored  people  were  obliged 
to  make  their  departure  in  this  year  of  grace,  or  at  any  other 
time,  the  white  Southerners,  to  be  chronologically  consistent, 
would  have  to  pack  their  "carpet-bags'"  and  vacate  the 
country  just  eight  years  later. 

As  a  matter  of  history  also,  the  negroes  were  here  even 
before  the  ever  memorable  and  historic  settlement  at  Ply 
mouth  Rock  which  has  crowned  this  country  with  honor  and 
glory. 

A  country  rightfully  belongs  to  its  inhabitants.  All  in 
common,  whatever  their  race,  have  vested  interests  in  the 
soil.  If  the  colored  people  have  no  such  rights,  then  none 
of  the  heterogeneous  peoples  inhabiting  the  country  possess 
them. 

If  long  and  continued  residence  establishes  the  right,  the 
colored  people  possess  it,  for  they  have  been  here  practically 
as  long  as  the  whites.  If  an  entrance  which  was  not  an  in 
trusion  or  a  trespass  would  give  the  right,  the  colored 
people  have  a  much  stronger  claim  than  the  whites,  for  they 
were  not  only  the  unwilling,  but  the  forcefully  entreated  and 
detained  occupant  guests. 

If  centuries  of  hard  and  faithful  toil,  the  toil  which 
develops  the  natural  resources  of  a  country,  and  which 
causes  "  the  wilderness  to  bloom  as  the  rose,"  would  make 
perfect  such  a  right,  the  colored  people  would  have  a  claim 
superior  to  that  of  Southern  whites. 

If  the  loyalty  and  patriotism  which  move  men  to  offer 
their  services,  spill  their  blood,  and  fight  and  die  in  defence 
of  their  country,  would  seal  the  right  of  inheritance  and 
vested  interests  in  the  soil,  here  too  the  colored  people  would 
have  peculiar  advantages  over  many  of  their  white  neighbors 
and  would  take  at  least  equal  rank  with  any  class  of  the 
population. 

The  blood  of  Crispus  Attucks,  a  negro,  was  the  first  blood 
that  was  shed  in  the  Revolutionary  War.  He  was  the  first 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

to  fall  from  the  volley  of  the  "  red  coats  "  in  the  "  Boston 
massacre."  Thus  a  negro's  blood  actually  sealed  American 
Independence. 

The  City  of  Boston  has  erected  on  her  Common,  a  monu 
ment  to  the  first  martyrs  of  American  liberty,  and  at  the 
head  of  the  list  is  a  negro,  the  selfsame  Crispus  Attucks. 
Peter  Salem,  a  negro,  fought  side  by  side  with  Warren  and 
his  comrades  in  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill. 

Colored  men  fought  under  Washington  in  several  of  his 
campaigns.  General  Greene,  in  writing  to  Alexander  Ham 
ilton,  the  10th  of  January,  1781,  from  the  vicinity  of  Camden, 
South  Carolina,  said  :  "  There  is  a  great  spirit  of  enterprise 
among  the  black  people,  and  those  that  have  come  out  as 
volunteers  are  not  a  little  formidable  to  the  enemy."" 

The  negro  was  with  Perry  in  his  great  victory  on  Lake 
Erie. 

Andrew  Jackson,  whom  the  South  has  delighted  to  honor, 
fought  with  negroes  at  the  battle  of  New  Orleans,  and 
praised  their  heroism  in  his  official  report.  The  colored 
soldiers  held  the  extreme  right  of  the  American  lines  and 
drove  back  the  British  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet. 

There  is  certainly  no  room  for  equivocation  or  doubt  as  to 
the  meaning  of  these  words  which  General  Jackson,  in  his 
proclamation  to  the  negroes  dated  September  21,  1814, 
used  :  "  To  every  noble-hearted,  generous  freeman  of  color 
volunteering  to  serve  during  the  present  contest  with  Great 
Britain  and  no  longer,  there  will  be  paid  the  same  bounty, 
in  money  and  lands,  now  received  by  the  white  soldiers  of 
the  United  States,  namely,  one  hundred  and  twenty-four 
dollars  in  money,  and  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  land. 
The  non-commissioned  officers  and  privates  will  also  be 
entitled  to  the  same  monthly  pay  and  daily  rations  and 
clothes  furnished  to  any  American  soldier.  To  assure  you 
of  the  sincerity  of  my  intentions,  and  my  anxiety  to  engage 
your  invaluable  services  to  our  country,  I  have  communicated 

125 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

my  wish  to  the  Governor  of  Louisiana,  who  is  fully  informed 
as  to  the  manner  of  enrolment,  and  will  give  you  every 
necessary  information  on  the  subject  of  this  address." 

Furthermore,  on  December  18,  1814,  General  Jackson,  in 
an  address  to  his  colored  soldiers,  said:  "To  the  men  of 
color.  Soldiers  !  From  the  shores  of  Mobile  I  collected  you 
to  arms ;  I  invited  you  to  share  in  the  perils  and  to  divide  the 
glory  of  your  white  countrymen.  I  expected  much  from  you  ; 
for  I  was  not  uninformed  of  those  qualities  which  render  you 
so  formidable  to  an  invading  foe.  I  knew  that  you  could 
endure  hunger  and  thirst  and  all  the  hardships  of  war. 
But  you  surpassed  my  hopes.  I  have  found  in  you,  united  to 
these  qualities,  that  noble  enthusiasm  which  impels  to  great 
deeds.  Soldiers  !  The  President  of  the  United  States  shall 
be  informed  of  your  conduct  on  the  present  occasion  ;  and  the 
voice  of  Representatives  of  the  American  nation  shall  applaud 
your  valor,  as  your  General  now  praises  your  ardor." 

That  foremost  patriot  and  expounder  of  the  Constitution, 
Alexander  Hamilton,  in  a  letter  to  John  Jay,  March  14, 
1779,  said :  "  I  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  the  negroes 
will  make  very  excellent  soldiers  with  proper  management ; 
and  I  will  venture  to  pronounce  that  they  cannot  be  put 
into  better  hands  than  those  of  Mr.  Laurens  [Colonel  Laurens 
of  South  Carolina].  .  .  . 

"  An  essential  part  of  the  plan  is  to  give  them  their  free 
dom  with  their  muskets." 

The  Honorable  Henry  Laurens,  father  of  Colonel  John 
Laurens  of  South  Carolina,  a  great  figure  in  the  Revolutionary 
War,  writing  to  General  Washington,  March  16,  1779,  says  : 
"  Had  we  arms  for  three  thousand  such  black  men  as  I  could 
select  in  Carolina,  I  should  have  no  doubt  of  success  in  driv 
ing  the  British  out  of  Georgia  and  subduing  East  Florida 
before  the  end  of  July." 

A  fact  of  transcendent  interest  may  be  recorded  here,  to 
wit :  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  on  March  29, 

126 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

1779,  passed  a  series  of  resolutions  (see  "  Secret  Journals  of 
Congress,"  pages  107-110)  in  part  as  follows  : 

"  Resolved,  That  it  be  recommended  to  the  States  of 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  if  they  shall  think  the  same 
expedient,  to  take  measures  immediately  for  raising  three 
thousand  able-bodied  negroes."  .  .  .  And  further  "  Resolved^ 
That  Congress  will  make  provision  for  paying  the  proprietors 
of  such  negroes  as  shall  be  enlisted  for  the  service  of  the 
United  States  during  the  war  a  full  compensation  for  the 
property  at  a  rate  not  exceeding  one  thousand  dollars  for 
each  active,  able-bodied  negro  man  of  standard  size,  not  ex 
ceeding  thirty-five  years  of  age,  who  shall  be  so  enlisted  and 
pass  muster." 

Congress  also  passed  on  the  same  day  the  following  reso 
lution  :  "  Whereas  John  Laurens,  Esq.,  who  has  heretofore 
acted  as  aid-de-camp  to  the  Commander-in-Chief,  is  desirous 
of  repairing  to  South  Carolina,  with  a  design  to  assist  in 
defence  of  the  Southern  States  :  — 

"Resolved,  That  a  commission  of  Lieutenant-Colonel  be 
granted  to  the  said  John  Laurens,  Esq." 

Thus  Colonel  Laurens  of  South  Carolina,  who  was  commis 
sioned  by  special  resolution  of  the  Congress,  was  foremost  in 
"  carrying  the  plan  of  the  black  levees  into  execution." 

The  Honorable  William  Eustis  of  Massachusetts,  who  was 
a  soldier  through  the  Revolutionary  War  and  afterwards  Gov 
ernor  of  Massachusetts  and  member  of  Congress,  in  a  speech 
in  the  Congress,  Dec.  12, 1820,  said  :  "  At  the  commencement 
of  the  Revolutionary  War,  there  were  found  in  the  Middle 
and  Northern  states  many  blacks,  and  other  people  of  color, 
capable  of  bearing  arms  ;  a  part  of  them  free,  the  greater- 
part  slaves.  The  freemen  entered  our  ranks  with  the  whites. 
The  time  of  those  who  were  slaves  was  purchased  by  the 
states  ;  and  they  were  induced  to  enter  the  service  in  conse 
quence  of  a  law  by  which,  on  condition  of  their  serving  in 
the  ranks  during  the  war,  they  were  made  freemen. 

127 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"  In  Rhode  Island,  where  their  numbers  were  more  consid 
erable,  they  were  formed  under  the  same  considerations  into 
a  regiment  commanded  by  white  officers ;  and  it  is  required, 
in  justice  to  them,  to  add  that  they  discharged  their  duty 
with  zeal  and  fidelity.  The  gallant  defence  of  Red  Bank,  in 
which  this  black  regiment  bore  a  part,  is  among  the  proofs  of 
their  valor. 

"Among  the  traits  which  distinguished  this  regiment  was 
their  devotion  to  their  officers  ;  when  their  brave  Colonel 
Greene  was  afterwards  cut  down  and  mortally  wounded,  the 
sabres  of  the  enemy  reached  his  body  only  through  the  limbs 
of  his  faithful  guard  of  blacks,  who  hovered  over  him  and 
protected  him,  every  one  of  whom  was  killed  and  whom  he 
was  not  ashamed  to  call  his  children. 

"  The  services  of  this  description  of  men  in  the  navy  are  also 
well  known.  I  should  not  have  mentioned  either,  but  for 
the  information  of  the  gentleman  from  Delaware,  whom  I 
understood  to  say  that  he  did  not  know  that  they  had  served 
in  any  considerable  numbers. 

"  The  war  over  and  peace  restored,  these  men  returned  to 
their  respective  states ;  and  who  could  have  said  to  them,  on 
their  return  to  civil  life,  after  having  shed  their  blood  in  com 
mon  with  the  whites  in  the  defence  of  the  liberties  of  the  coun 
try,  '  You  are  not  to  participate  in  the  rights  secured  by  the 
struggle,  or  the  liberty  for  which  you  have  been  fighting '  ? 

"  Certainly  no  white  man  in  Massachusetts." 

Straight  to  the  point  are  the  positive  utterances  of  the  Hon 
orable  Charles  Pinckney  of  South  Carolina,  who,  in  a  speech 
in  the  Congress,  December,  1820,  said  :  "  They  [the  negroes] 
were,  as  they  still  are,  as  valuable  a  part  of  our  population 
to  the  Union  as  any  other  equal  number  of  inhabitants. 
They  were  in  numerous  instances  the  pioneers,  and,  in  all, 
the  laborers,  of  your  armies.  To  their  hands  were  owing  the 
erection  of  the  greatest  part  of  the  fortifications  raised  for 
the  protection  of  our  country  ;  some  of  which,  particularly 

128 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

Fort  Moultrie,  gave,  at  that  early  period  of  the  inexpe 
rience  and  untried  valor  of  our  citizens,  immortality  to  Ameri 
can  arms ;  and  in  the  Northern  states  numerous  bodies  of 
them  were  enrolled  into,  and  fought  by  the  sides  of  the 
whites,  the  battles  of  the  Revolution." 

The  conclusion  is  unavoidable  that  these  brave  and  much 
praised  black  patriots,  whose  u  invaluable  services  "  were  un 
grudgingly  acknowledged  by  leading  men  North  and  South, 
were,  with  their  descendants,  gradually  forced  back  into 
slavery.  And  as  the  institution  grew  and  flourished  they 
were  lost  in  it  and  their  identity  and  services  forgotten. 

The  great  services  of  the  negroes  on  land  and  at  sea  in  the 
War  of  the  Rebellion  are  well  known.  Admiral  Porter,  in 
his  Naval  History  of  the  Civil  War,  says :  "  A  remarkable 
instance  of  patriotism  on  the  part  of  the  colored  people  was 
evinced  in  the  bringing  out  of  the  armed  steamer  '  Planter ' 
from  Charleston  and  delivering  her  over  to  the  naval  officers 
blockading  that  port.  .  .  .  [This  act]  would  have  done  credit 
to  any  one,  but  the  cleverness  with  which  the  whole  affair 
was  conducted  deserves  more  than  a  passing  notice.1'1  Robert 
Smalls,  a  mulatto,  was  the  pilot  of  the  Confederate  steamer 
"  Planter."  Seizing  the  vessel  while  the  white  officers  were 
on  shore,  with  the  assistance  of  the  negro  crew  he  cast  off 
the  hawser  under  the  very  eyes  of  a  sentinel,  steamed  down 
the  bay  performing  the  proper  salutes,  passed  Fort  Sumter, 
and  proceeded  to  sea  before  the  Confederates  realized  that 
the  vessel  was  bound  for  the  blockading  fleet.  Smalls1  heroic 
services  were  recognized  by  Congress,  and  he  afterwards 
became  a  member  of  Congress  from  South  Carolina. 

Colonel  Le  Grand  B.  Cannon,  in  a  volume  entitled  "  Per 
sonal  Reminiscences  of  the  Rebellion,"  makes  this  most  inter 
esting  recital :  "  Some  little  time  after  the  duel  in  Hampton 
Roads,  early  in  the  month  of  April,  four  big  steamships  — 
the  "  Vanderbilt,"  the  "  Arago,"  the  "Ericsson,"  and  the 
"  Illinois  "  —  came  down  to  Fort  Monroe,  to  be  in  the  harbor 
9 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

in  readiness  to  attack  the  "Merrimac"  if  she  came  out,  and 
to  destroy  her  by  running  her  down.  Captain  Gadsden  of 
the  "  Arago,"  a  merchant  ship  chartered  for  this  service,  on 
reaching  Fort  Monroe  and  opening  his  orders,  found  that  his 
ship  was  to  be  a  ram.  His  crew  in  some  way  got  to  know 
the  nature  of  the  mission  their  ship  was  in,  and  the  danger 
ous  character  of  the  work  in  which  they  were  to  engage,  and 
promptly  deserted  in  a  body. 

"  The  next  morning  Captain  Gadsden  found  he  had  not  a 
man  aboard  his  ship  except  his  officers.  He  went  to  the 
admiral  of  the  fleet  and  stated  his  dilemma.  The  admiral 
said  he  had  not  a  man  to  spare.  General  Wool  (of  the  land 
forces)  brought  Captain  Gadsden  to  me,  and  the  latter  re 
lated  to  me  the  condition  of  affairs.  He  said  negroes  \vould 
do  for  his  purposes  quite  as  well  as  white  men,  and  asked  me 
if  I  would  give  him  fifty  negroes. 

"  '  Yes,'  I  answered,  '  I  will  let  you  have  all  the  negroes  you 
want  under  certain  conditions.' 

"  '  What  are  they  ?  '  asked  Captain  Gadsden. 

" ' They  must  be  volunteers,'  I  said. 

"  '  What  will  be  the  pay,'  I  asked. 

"  '  Thirteen  dollars  a  month  and  rations,'  he  answered. 

"  'All  right,'  I  said,  'you  come  to  me  at  12  o'clock.' 

"At  12  o'clock  Captain  Wilder  had  three  hundred  and 
fifty  sturdy  negro  stevedores  drawn  up  in  double  lines.  I 
addressed  them  saying :  '  I  do  not  know  what  the  result  of 
this  war  will  be  in  regard  to  your  condition.  I  hope  it  will 
result  in  your  freedom.  Some  have  got  to  shed  their  blood, 
and  others  to  lay  down  their  lives.  You  have  seen  the  battle 
which  has  been  fought  between  the  "  Merrimac "  and  our 
vessels  of  war.  We  have  brought  down  four  big  ships  to 
destroy  the  "  Merrimac "  by  ramming  her.  The  enterprise 
is  a  hazardous  one,  but  it  is  one  of  glory.  From  on  board 
one  ship  the  white  sailors  have  deserted  because  of  the  hazard 
of  the  service.  It  is  my  privilege  to  offer  to  fifty  of  you  the 

130 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

opportunity  to  volunteer  to  go  on  that  ship.  Every  man 
who  survives  will  be  a  hero,  and  those  who  fall  will  be  mar 
tyrs.  Now,  those  boys  who  will  volunteer  to  go  on  board 
this  fighting  ship  will  move  three  paces  to  the  front.1 

"And  the  whole  line  moved  up  in  a  solid  column,  as 
though  actuated  by  a  single  impulse.  It  was  a  thrilling 
response,  and  the  most  remarkable  and  impressive  scene  I 
ever  witnessed.  We  picked  out  fifty  of  the  most  likely  men, 
and  they  were  sent  at  once  on  board  the  "Arago."  They 
were  escorted  down  to  the  boats  by  all  the  negroes  round 
about,  with  shouting,  singing,  and  praying,  and  every  demon 
stration  of  exultant  joy.  It  was  a  most  exciting  and  inspir 
ing  sight. 

"The  volunteers  put  aboard  the  "Arago"  proved  them 
selves  most  apt  and  willing  workers,  and  soon  proved  their 
value  and  justified  our  confidence.  A  week  or  two  after  this 
incident  Captain  Fox,  First  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
came  down  to  Fort  Monroe.  I  told  him  what  we  had  done, 
and  he  was  greatly  pleased  and  interested  and  saw  the  men, 
and  inquired  fully  as  to  their  capabilities  and  value.  Shortly 
afterward  he  issued  an  order  that  the  fleets  should  be  re 
cruited  entirely  from  negroes.  Thus  were  negroes,  fugitives, 
slaves,  enlisted  in  the  naval  service  of  the  United  States,  as 
free  men  and  free  agents,  on  the  same  footing  as  the  white 
volunteers,  nine  months  before  the  Proclamation  of  Emanci 
pation  by  President  Lincoln." 

Colonel  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  of  Boston,  who  in 
turn  commanded  both  white  and  colored  soldiers,  in  a  recent 
issue  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  of  the  colored  soldiers  says : 
"  As  to  the  general  facts  of  courage  and  reliability,  I  think 
that  no  officer  in  our  camp  ever  thought  of  there  being  any 
essential  difference  between  black  and  white ;  and  surely  the 
judgment  of  these  officers,  who  were  risking  their  lives  at 
every  moment,  month  after  month,  on  the  fidelity  of  their 
men,  was  worth  more  than  the  opinion  of  the  world  besides. 

131 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

As  the  negroes  were  intensely  human  at  these  points,  they 
were  equally  so  in  pointing  out  that  they  had  more  to  fight 
for  than  the  white  soldier.  They  loved  the  United  States 
flag,  and  I  remember  one  zealous  corporal,  a  man  of  natural 
eloquence,  pointing  to  it  during  a  meeting  on  the  Fourth  of 
July,  and  saying  with  more  zeal  than  statistical  accuracy, 
'  Dar  's  dat  flag,  we  hab  lib  under  it  for  eighteen  hundred 
and  sixty-two  years,  and  we  11  lib  and  die  for  it  now.1  But 
they  could  never  forget  that,  besides  the  flag  and  the  Union, 
they  had  home  and  wife  and  child  to  fight  for.  War  was  a 
very  serious  matter  to  them.  They  took  a  grim  satisfaction 
when  orders  were  issued  that  the  officers  of  colored  troops 
should  be  put  to  death  on  capture.  It  helped  their  esprit  de 
corps  immensely.  Their  officers,  like  themselves,  were  hence 
forward  to  fight  with  ropes  around  their  necks.  Even  when 
the  new  black  regiments  began  to  come  down  from  the  North, 
the  Southern  blacks  pointed  out  this  difference,  that  in  case 
of  ultimate  defeat,  the  Northern  troops,  black  or  white,  must 
sooner  or  later  be  exchanged  and  returned  to  their  homes, 
whereas,  they  themselves  must  fight  it  out  or  be  re-enslaved. 
All  this  was  absolutely  correct  reasoning  and  showed  them 
human.  And  further,  no  matter  how  reckless  in  bearing  they 
might  be,  those  negroes  were  almost  fatalists  in  their  confi 
dence  that  God  would  watch  over  them  ;  and  if  they  died  it 
would  be  because  their  time  had  come.  '  If  each  one  of  us 
was  a  praying  man,"*  said  one  of  my  corporals  in  a  speech,  '  it 
appears  to  me  that  we  could  fight  as  well  with  prayers  as  with 
bullets,  for  the  Lord  has  said  that  if  you  have  faith  even  as  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed  cut  into  four  parts,  you  can  say  to  the 
sycamore  tree  "Arise,"  and  it  will  come  up."  And  though 
Corporal  Long's  botany  may  have  got  a  little  confused,  his 
faith  proved  itself  by  works,  for  he  volunteered  to  go  many 
miles  on  a  solitary  scouting  expedition  into  the  enemy's 
country  in  Florida,  and  got  back  safe  after  he  had  been 
given  up  for  lost." 

132 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

The  Reverend  Dr.  Joseph  E.  Roy,  now  residing  at  Oak  Park, 
Illinois,  in  an  article  in  The  New  Englander  and  Yak  Review, 
on  "  ( )ur  Indebtedness  to  the  Negroes  for  their  Conduct  dur 
ing  the  War,1''  speaks  of  Wagner,  Port  Hudson,  the  "  Tragedy 
of  the  Crater"  at  Petersburg,  and  Fort  Pillow  as  giving  the 
severest  test  of  these  black  soldiers  and  as  winning  the  favor 
and  the  admiration  of  the  army  and  of  the  country. 

He  quotes  the  opinions  of  General  Grant,  General  Burn- 
side,  Captain  Jewett,  Colonel  Bassett,  General  Hunter, 
Captain  Pease,  Governor  Rush  of  Wisconsin,  and  others,  who 
were  in  touch  with  colored  soldiers  and  knew  their  value. 
He  then  proceeds :  "  It  would  be  edifying  to  our  patriotism 
to  follow  them  through  the  two  hundred  and  forty-nine  bat 
tles  and  engagements  in  which  they  participated,  down  the 
Atlantic  coast,  down  the  Mississippi,  and  along  with  the 
armies  of  the  Potomac,  the  James,  and  Cumberland.  In  such 
a  tour  we  would  find  them  at  Ship  Island  successfully  resisting 
the  assault  of  Confederate  veterans  twice  their  number ;  we 
would  find  them  at  Milli ken's  Bend,  whipping  the  enemy  that 
came  yelling,  '  No  quarter ! '  at  Fort  Powhatan,  where  the 
ex-slaves  met  three  charges  from  the  Virginia  masters  under 
Fitzhugh  Lee  and  held  out  for  a  five  hours'1  fight,  carrying 
the  day  ;  at  Bermuda  Hundred,  where  they  took  six  redoubts 
with  their  connecting  rifle-pits  and  captured  seven  pieces  of 
artillery ;  at  Decatur,  capturing  a  battery  with  a  loss  of  six 
officers  and  sixty  men ;  at  Dalton,  where  an  inspecting  cap 
tain  reported  to  General  Steedman,  'The  regiment  over 
there  is  holding  dress  parade  under  fire  "* ;  at  Honey  Hill, 
where  in  a  battle  that  had  twenty-three  hundred  union  sol 
diers  killed  or  wounded,  as  Captain  Jewett  tells  me,  his  men, 
lying  down  to  protect  a  battery,  would  beg  permission  and 
go  out,  a  few  at  a  time,  to  join  in  the  fight,  only  a  part  of 
them  coming  back  ;  and  at  Nashville,  where  a  negro  division 
was  put  forward  to  open  the  battle,  and  where,  as  Captain 
Lyman  told  me,  his  colored  regiment,  in  making  the  sixty 

133 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

rods  to  capture  a  bastion,  had  fifty-six  men  killed  and  one 
hundred  and  twenty-eight  wounded. 

"  Captain  H.  V.  Freeman,  of  Chicago,  addressing  the  stu 
dents  of  Hampton  upon  the  bravery  of  the  colored  troops, 
said :  '  It  was  the  second  day  of  the  battle  of  Nashville  that 
the  charge  on  Overton  Hill  occurred.  Three  regiments  of 
General  Thomas's  brigade  —  the  12th,  13th,  and  100th  — 
were  colored  troops.  These  were  put  in  with  a  division  of 
colored  troops  —  General  Wood's  4th  Army  Corps  —  for  the 
charge  on  Overton  Hill.  The  first  charge  was  not  successful, 
owing  to  the  wounding  of  General  Post  of  the  4th  Army 
Corps,  and  also  to  the  difficulty  of  crossing  the  ploughed 
ground.  You  know  what  Tennessee  clay  soil  is  when  it  gets 
wet  —  there  seems  no  bottom  to  it.  Going  through  that 
corn  field,  it  seemed  as  if  there  was  no  bottom  to  it,  and  as 
we  pulled  our  feet  out — all  the  while  the  cannons  playing 
on  us  from  the  hill  —  each  foot  seemed  to  weigh  a  ton.  At 
the  bottom  of  the  hill  we  got  over  a  rail  fence  —  all  that  were 
left  of  us  —  and  found  ourselves  on  good  turf.  It  seemed  then 
as  if  we  could  fly ;  but  there  were  tree  tops  cut  down  and  as 
I  saw  my  men  struggling  through  them,  they  seemed  to  be 
sticking  to  them  like  flies  in  a  spider's  web,  the  rebel  cannon 
sending  in  grape  shot  and  canister  upon  them.  The  result 
was  that  the  only  men  who  reached  the  ramparts  were  men 
of  the  colored  regiments.  They  scaled  the  ramparts,  and 
every  man  who  did  was  shot  down.  The  first  charge,  as  I 
said,  was  not  a  success,  but  the  regiments  did  not  retreat. 
Those  left  lay  down  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  and  at  the  next 
order  to  charge,  with  the  whole  line  they  swept  over  the 
ramparts/  " 

Dr.  Roy  also  quotes  General  S.  C.  Armstrong,  as  follows  : 
"  At  the  siege  of  Richmond,  I  received  an  order  to  push  my 
regiment  —  the  9th  U.  S.  Colored  Infantry  —  to  the  flank  of 
General  Terry's  division,  which  was  being  hard  pressed. 
Standing  there  in  line  we  were  harassed  by  an  unseen  foe 

134 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

hidden  in  the  bushes.  It  was  impossible  to  hold  the  position 
and  I  ordered  my  men  to  fall  back,  and,  to  avoid  a  panic 
and  stampede,  I  ordered  them  to  walk  ;  and  they  did  so  the 
whole  distance  —  shot  at  by  the  unseen  enemy  as  they  went, 
and  having  to  climb  over  fallen  trees  and  go  through  rough 
ground.  They  got  back  panting  with  fatigue  and  lay  down 
exhausted.  As  they  lay  there  the  order  came  from  our 
brigade  commander  to  go  back  over  the  same  ground  and 
retake  the  position.  I  knew  that  meant  death  for  every  one 
of  us,  but  a  soldier  has  only  to  obey,  so  I  gave  the  order  and 
we  started.  But  General  Terry  saw  us  going,  and  under 
standing  the  position,  ordered  us  back  and  saved  us.  What 
struck  me  was  that  every  man  went  forward.  Exhausted  as 
they  were,  knowing  as  they  did  the  difficulty  of  the  way  and 
the  certainty  of  death  before  them,  not  one  man  faltered." 

At  Fort  Harrison,  within  five  miles  of  Richmond,  where 
the  rebel  garrison  cried  out,  "  Come  on,  darkies,  we  want  your 
muskets !  "  they  did  come  on,  shouting,  "  Remember  Fort 
Pillow  !  "  to  capture  those  taunting  cavaliers  and  their  strong 
hold  ;  of  which  exploit  General  Butler,  on  the  floor  of  Con 
gress,  said :  "  It  became  my  painful  duty,  sir,  to  follow  in 
the  track  of  that  charging  column,  and  there,  in  a  space  not 
wider  than  the  clerk's  desk,  and  three  hundred  yards  long, 
lay  the  dead  bodies  of  five  hundred  and  forty-three  ebony- 
colored  comrades,  slain  in  the  defence  of  their  country,  who 
had  laid  down  their  lives  to  uphold  its  flag  and  its  honor  as 
a  willing  sacrifice. 

"  Our  indebtedness  to  these  people  for  their  conduct  during 
the  war  —  who  can  reckon  it  up  ?  We  early  set  about 
discharging  a  part  of  that  obligation.  We  gave  them  their 
freedom.  We  clothed  them  with  citizenship.  We  conferred 
upon  them  the  suffrage.  The  Government  is  in  covenant, 
before  God  and  the  nations,  with  these  allies,  whose  late 
coming  was  like  that  of  Blucher  to  our  Waterloo.  It  main 
tains  the  rights  of  only  an  intended  citizen  everywhere 

135 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

around  the  globe.  Will  it  keep  faith  with  ten  millions 
of  native  Americans,  whose  citizenship  has  been  sealed  in 
blood  ? 

"  They  are  Americans,  baptized  as  such  by  the  sprinkling 
of  blood.  We  must  honor  their  rights  of  inheritance  and  of 
baptism." 

The  testimony  of  two  other  important  witnesses  may  be 
inserted  here. 

Gdneral  George  H.  Thomas,  the  hero  of  the  battle  at 
Nashville,  Tennessee,  after  riding  over  the  field  and  viewing 
the  bodies  of  white  and  colored  soldiers  mingled  together, 
said  :  "  This  day  proves  the  manhood  of  the  negro.'" 

And  President  Lincoln  said  :  "  I  was,  in  my  best  judgment, 
driven  to  the  alternative  of  either  surrendering  the  Union  and 
with  it  the  Constitution,  or  of  laying  strong  hands  upon  the 
colored  element.  I  chose  the  latter.1' 

He  also  said  :  "  Take  200,000  [black  soldiers]  from  our 
side  and  put  them  in  the  battlefield  or  cornfield  against  us 
and  we  would  be  compelled  to  abandon  the  war  in  three 
weeks.""  And  again :  "  Then  there  will  be  some  black  men 
who  can  remember  that,  with  silent  tongue,  with  clinched 
teeth,  with  steady  eye,  and  with  well  poised  bayonet,  they 
have  helped  mankind  on  to  this  great  consummation  [the 
preservation  of  free  institutions],  while  I  fear  that  there  will 
be  some  white  men  unable  to  forget  that  with  malignant 
heart  and  deceitful  speech  they  have  striven  to  hinder  it." 

In  the  Spanish- American  war  the  negro  soldier  won  renown 
for  American  arms. 

Mr.  James  Creelman,  the  war  correspondent,  reported  in 
the  New  York  Journal  as  follows  :  "  A  perfect  storm  of  shot 
and  shell  swept  the  hillside.  There  was  a  moment  of  hesi 
tation  along  the  line.  Then  the  order  was,  Forward,  charge  ! 
Roosevelt  was  in  the  lead  waving  his  sword.  Out  into  the 
open  and  up  the  hill  where  death  seemed  certain,  in  the  face 
of  the  continuous  crackle  of  the  Mauser,  came  the  Rough 

136 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

Riders  with  the  Tenth  (colored)  Cavalry  alongside.  Not  a 
man  flinched,  all  continuing  to  fire  as  they  ran.  Roosevelt 
was  a  hundred  feet  ahead  of  his  troops,  yelling  like  a  Sioux, 
while  his  own  men  and  the  colored  cavalry  cheered  him  as 
they  charged  up  the  hill.  There  was  no  stopping  as  men's 
neighbors  fell,  but  on  they  went  faster  and  faster. 

"  It  was  something  terrible  to  watch  these  men  race  up 
that  hill  with  death.  Fast  as  they  were  going  it  seemed 
that  they  would  never  reach  the  crest.  .  .  .  We  could 
clearly  see  the  wonderful  work  the  dusky  veterans  of  the 
Tenth  were  doing.  Such  splendid  shooting  was  probably 
never  done  under  these  conditions.  As  fast  as  the  Spanish 
fire  thinned  their  ranks  the  gaps  were  closed  up,  and  after 
an  eternity  they  gained  the  top  of  the  hill  and  rushed  the 
few  remaining  yards  to  the  Spanish  trenches.  The  position 
was  won.  Across  the  gulch  the  soldiers  wildly  cheered  the 
gallant  Tenth.  The  Tenth  gave  tongue  with  an  answering 
cheer  and  rush  on  to  drive  the  enemy  further.  Over  the 
Spanish  trenches  they  tore,  passing  the  Spanish  dead." 

Associate  Justice  Curtis,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  in  his  dissenting  opinion  from  Chief  Justice 
Taney  in  the  celebrated  Dred  Scott  case,  says  :  "  At  the  time 
of  the  ratification  of  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  all  free 
native-born  inhabitants  of  the  states  of  New  Hampshire,  Mass 
achusetts,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  North  Carolina,  though 
descendants  from  African  slaves,  were  not  only  citizens  of 
those  states,  but  such  of  them  as  had  the  other  qualifications 
possessed  the  franchise  of  electors,  on  equal  terms  with  other 
citizens.  It  has  already  been  shown  that,  in  five  of  the 
thirteen  original  states,  colored  persons  then  possessed  the 
elective  franchise,  and  were  among  those  by  whom  the  Con 
stitution  was  ordained  and  established.  If  so,  it  is  not  true, 
in  point  of  fact,  that  the  Constitution  was  made  exclusively 
by  the  white  race.  And  that  it  was  made  exclusively  for  the 
white  race  is,  in  my  opinion,  not  only  an  assumption  not 

137 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

warranted  by  anything  in  the  Constitution,  but  contradicted 
by  its  opening  declaration,  that  it  was  ordained  and  es 
tablished  by  the  people  of  the  United  States  for  themselves 
and  their  posterity.  And  as  free  colored  persons  were  then 
citizens  of  at  least  five  states,  and  so  in  every  sense,  part  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  they  were  among  those  for 
whom  and  whose  posterity  the  Constitution  was  ordained 
and  established." 

Thus  it  is  absolutely  indisputable  that  the  colored  man 
not  only  fought  for  American  independence  but  also  assisted 
as  a  voter  in  ordaining  and  establishing  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States. 

In  view  of  these  and  many  other  things,  it  may  appear, 
after  all,  that  the  negro  can  establish  a  very  clear  title  to  his 
rights  and  domicile  on  American  soil  —  a  title  as  clean  and 
as  perfect  in  every  respect  as  that  of  his  persecutors  and 
oppressors. 

A  white  man's  country  forsooth !  There  is  but  one  step 
further  for  these  Southern  leaders  to  take,  and  that  is  to 
claim  that  the  God  of  the  universe  is  a  white  man's  God  ;  the 
Redeemer  of  the  world  is  a  white  man's  Redeemer ;  the  sun, 
moon,  and  stars  are  the  white  man's  possession  ;  the  cooling 
zephyr,  the  air  that  is  breathed,  the  mighty  deep,  and  all  the 
waters  which  bear  the  traffic  and  commerce  of  the  world  on 
their  bosom,  and  all  the  bountiful  gifts  of  nature  belong  to 
the  white  man.  After  this  these  leaders  can  wrap  them 
selves  in  the  mantle  of  their  vast  and  superb  superiority  and 
wait  and  watch  and  even  weep  for  other  claims  to  stake. 

It  will  seem,  however,  to  rational  people,  and  there  are  a 
great  many  such  in  the  South,  that  this  "  white-man's-coun- 
try"  argument  is  so  monstrously  stupid,  so  silly  and  inane, 
that  the  mere  statement  of  its  logical  inferences  is  sufficient 
to  destroy  it. 

Social  equality !  This  is  the  bogy-man  of  the  South. 
And  it  appears  that  he  is  nowadays  frightening,  not  the 

138 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

children,  but  the  old  folks  ;  and  doubtless  many  are  in  a  state 
of  perturbation  bordering  on  hysteria. 

Some  twenty  years  or  so  ago,  when  the  white  people  of  the 
South  first  displayed  this  bogy-man,  Mr.  George  W.  Cable, 
himself  a  Southerner,  a  man  gifted  with  the  courage  of  his 
convictions,  killed  the  bogy-man  with  this  simple  short, 
piercing  sentence,  "  Social  equality  is  the  dream  of  a  fool."" 

The  nation  instantly  accepted  this  declaration  as  a  verity. 
The  poor  old  bogy-man  was  laid  away  in  his  grave  and  had 
almost  gone  "out  of  the  memory  of  man."  But  lo,  and 
behold,  the  leaders  of  the  South  have  dug  him  up,  taken 
off  his  grave  clothes,  put  strange  robes  on  him,  electrified 
him,  and  made  him  all  over  into  a  most  "  horrible  fright,1' 
and  now  present  him  once  more  like  an  automaton  to  the 
public.  By  the  deft  touch  of  the  Southern  magicians,  he  is 
made  to  pose  first  this  way,  and  then  that  way,  and  still  other 
ways,  creating  wild  and  violent  excitement  among  the  whites 
and  carrying  violence  and  death  to  the  colored  people. 

The  gyrations  of  the  galvanically  manipulated  old  bogy- 
man  have  been  so  industriously  and  effectually  worked  by 
the  Southern  leaders  that  the  white  people  of  the  South  have 
themselves  been  thrown  into  a  strange  panic ;  while  the 
people  of  the  nation  at  large,  self-possessed,  are  either  hot 
with  indignation,  or  are  grimly  humorous  over  the  excite 
ment  of  the  leaders  of  this  movement,  with  their  ravings  and 
comical  and  crazy  antics,  regarding  it  as  a  free  show  by  the 
hysterical,  frenzied  social-equality  Southern  leaders. 

Social  equality !  It  is  fitful,  transient,  elusive.  Shall  this 
visionary,  fleeting,  intangible  thing,  with  its  many-sidedness, 
dominate  the  life  of  the  republic?  Is  it  to  be  a  new  test  of 
American  manhood  and  citizenship  ?  If  so,  then  who  is  to 
act  as  judge  in  regard  to  it?  The  social-equality  man  of 
to-day  is  the  convict  in  the  prison  cell  on  the  to-morrow. 
Shall  not  character,  good  citizenship,  competencv,  talent, 
honest  manhood,  faithful  service,  and  patriotism  outweigh 

139 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

the  fooFs  dream  of  social  equality  ?  What  matters  it, 
whether  the  prime  virtues  and  graces  of  life  are  found  under 
the  white  or  the  ebony  skin  ?  Did  not  the  same  God  make 
both  ?  Does  He  not  plant  His  divinity  in  both  alike  ?  Can 
the  color  of  the  skin  lessen  the  character  and  merit  of  the 
man  ? 

Is  it  not  true  that 

"  All  men  are  equal  in  God's  sight ; 
There  is  no  black,  there  is  no  white  "  ? 

In  the  constitution  of  human  society  social  equality  has 
never  existed  anywhere,  it  does  not  exist  anywhere,  and  it 
never  can  exist  anywhere.  There  are  circles,  and  circles 
within  circles;  there  are  sets  and  grades  and  cliques  and 
clans  within  sets  and  grades  and  cliques  and  clans.  Which, 
then,  is  the  real  thing  ? 

What  are  the  lines  of  differentiation  which  would  shut  out 
every  colored  person  —  for  this  is  the  plain  purpose  of  the 
Southern  leaders — from  consideration  as  a  member  of  the 
social  organism  which  would  not  be  an  impeachment  of 
common-sense,  Christianity,  and  civilization  ?  Members  of 
the  same  family  and  household  are  not  necessarily  social 
equals ;  one  member  may  be  good,  and  another  bad ;  one 
talented  and  refined,  and  another  ignorant  and  coarse ;  one 
magnificent  and  glorious  in  usefulness  to  the  world,  and 
another  a  curse  to  humanity. 

What  of  social  equality?  Human  life  does  not  move 
smoothly  on  a  dead  level.  Its  course  is  up,  down ;  down,  up. 
Many  born  to  station,  luxury,  and  wealth  have  died  in 
poverty,  in  the  slums,  and  in  the  gutter. 

What  of  social  equality?  Many  have  risen  from  the 
ranks  of  the  lowliest,  the  most  destitute,  and  even  from  the 
abandoned  classes,  to  the  highest  walks  of  life,  and  some 
such  have  been  crowned  with  a  people's  respect,  love,  and 
homage. 

140 


THE    WAR;  ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

What  of  social  equality  ?  The  lowly  born  do  not  always 
remain  lowly.  The  high  born  do  not  always  stay  on  top. 
Each  rank  is  continuously  recruiting  the  other.  What  of 
social  equality  ? 

Alexandra  Dumas  with  his  strain  of  negro  blood  is  counted 
an  honor  to  France.  There  are  thousands  of  colored  people 
in  the  South  who  in  every  one  of  the  essentials  of  life  — 
in  intelligence,  education,  refinement,  culture,  industry,  as 
holders  of  property  and  tax-payers,  as  good  citizens  living 
orderly  and  decent  lives,  as  public-spirited  and  useful  mem 
bers  of  the  community,  in  moral  worth  —  are  superior  to 
some  thousands  of  whites.  Why  should  these  people  be 
crushed  and  offered  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  social-equality  bogy  ? 

Are  free  institutions,  "government  of  the  people,  for  the 
people,  and  by  the  people11  to  give  place  to  government  of 
social  equality,  for  social  equality,  and  by  social  equality  ? 
The  glory  of  the  republic  is  that  it  has  been  governed  by 
the  people.  No  social-equality  set  has  ever  ruled  it.  It  is  a 
presumption  for  these  leaders  to  mark  dividing  lines  and  say 
that  an  American  citizen  shall  not  rise  beyond  them  in  life, 
in  honor,  in  the  respect  of  his  fellows,  in  usefulness,  in  the 
service  of  the  nation.  The  idea  is  alien,  extremely  vicious, 
pernicious,  mischievous,  hideous. 

If  this  cry  of  social  equality  at  one  time  destroys  the 
liberty  and  rights  of  the  colored  people,  what  is  to  prevent 
it  at  another  time  from  crushing  out  the  liberty  and  rights 
of  the  Jews,  or  the  Irish,  or  the  Italians,  or  the  Poles,  or  the 
Swedes,  or  any  other  people  ?  Tyranny  or  oppression  grows 
by  what  it  feeds  on.  It  ever  seeks  a  victim.  This  nation 
is  cosmopolitan,  embracing  representatives  of  all  the  peoples 
of  the  world.  At  many  places  or  localities  these  representa 
tives  may  be  few,  or  may  not  be  influential.  What  is  to 
save  their  liberties  and  rights  from  destruction  ?  Just  and 
equal  laws  for  all  the  people  are  the  only  safety  of  all  the 
people. 

141 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

If  the  republic  were  in  peril,  and  called  on  its  citizens  for 
its  defence,  who  would  dare  to  raise  social  equality  as  a  test 
or  standard  for  service  ?  All  who  are  competent  to  bear 
arms  and  face  the  enemy  would  be  welcomed.  Many  were 
the  loyal  and  patriotic  citizens  who  responded  to  the  call  of 
their  country  in  1861,  and  who  never  so  much  as  heard  of 
such  a  thing  as  social  equality.  They  went  in  with  muskets 
on  their  shoulders,  and  as  unknown  quantities.  Many  came 
out  rich  in  the  affection,  and  amid  the  glare  of  trumpets  and 
the  cheers  and  shouts,  of  a  great  and  free  people,  who  will 
never  forget  their  deeds  of  valor,  nor  allow  the  fruitage  of 
their  sacrifices  to  be  destroyed. 

When  the  republic  is  at  peace  it  savors  of  effrontery  for 
any  one  to  presume  to  make  social  equality  a  passport  to  the 
public  service.  Are  there  not  men  of  high  social  standing 
who  are  absolutely  unfit  for  the  duties  of  the  public  service  ? 
And  on  the  other  hand,  are  there  not  men  without  such 
standing  who  are  qualified  to  discharge  the  most  delicate 
and  arduous  duties  of  the  official  life? 

The  question  naturally  arises,  Are  all  the  white  Southern 
office-holders  men  of  the  equality  type  ?  If  they  are,  then 
some  facts  generally  known  bespeak  a  condition  of  social  order 
among  them  which  cannot  be  regarded  as  encouraging. 

Fresh  in  the  minds  of  the  public  are  these  happenings  :  A 
lieutenant-governor  of  South  Carolina  presided  over  the 
Senate  with  a  brace  of  revolvers  in  his  hip  pockets,  and  went 
straight  from  the  Senate  chamber  to  the  streets  and  shot 
down  an  unarmed  and  highly  respected  citizen  ;  a  lieutenant- 
governor  of  Louisiana  was  shot  to  death  in  a  street  brawl ;  a 
lieutenant-governor  of  Missouri  was  forced  to  resign  from 
his  office,  admitting  under  oath  that  he  was  a  bribe  taker 
and  bribe  giver ;  a  United  States  senator  and  a  congressman 
battered  each  other  in  a  curbstone  fight  in  Arkansas ;  two 
United  States  senators  from  South  Carolina  tried  conclusions 
in  a  pugilistic  encounter  on  the  floor  of  the  United  States 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

Senate  and  in  open  session  ;  a  United  States  senator  from 
Texas  demonstrated  his  ability  as  an  all-round  "  scrapper  " 
by  the  manner  in  which  he  "punched"  a  most  reputable 
member  of  that  body  ;  a  mayor  of  the  leading  city  in  Georgia 
was  repeatedly  haled  to  court  for  intoxication  ;  a  congressman 
from  Missouri  assaulted  and  attempted  to  stab  a  street-car 
conductor  in  the  city  of  Washington  rather  than  pay  a  five- 
cent  fare  ;  a  governor  of  Alabama  and  a  judge  of  a  court  in 
that  state  argued  their  difference  with  the  strenuosity  of 
fisticuffs ;  a  son  of  a  governor  of  Kentucky  who  was  also  his 
private  secretary  was  shot  to  death  for  dishonoring  a  home, 
and  his  victim  with  him  ;  grave  senators  and  members  of  a 
state  legislature  have  confessed  under  oath  to  receiving 
bribes  and  giving  bribes  for  votes  on  matters  of  legislation ; 
city  aldermen  and  leading  citizens  more  than  a  score  have 
been  charged  and  convicted  of  betraying  their  trusts,  re 
ceiving  and  disbursing  bribe  money ;  feuds  have  flourished, 
thirty-eight  citizens  having  been  assassinated  in  one  Kentucky 
county  in  a  brief  period  of  time ;  defalcations  and  embezzle 
ments  have  been  frequent  —  Tennessee  lost  $500,000  by  the 
defalcation  of  its  state  treasurer ;  Alabama  lost  $400,000 ; 
three  other  Southern  states  also  suffered  heavy  losses ;  and 
as  to  county  treasurers,  a  long  list  of  them  have  embezzled 
the  people's  money  and  voluntarily  exiled  themselves  from 
their  homes  between  the  setting  and  rising  of  the  sun. 

And  this  is  not  the  half  that  might  be  said  along  these 
lines ;  but  it  is  enough  to  prick  the  bubble  of  Southern 
nonsense  that  social  equality  shall  be  the  test  for  holding 
public  office.  The  question  is  asked  again,  Do  these  men  — 
for  some  of  them  are  still  in  office  —  represent  the  ideal  of 
Southern  social  equality  ? 

It  is  a  false  pretext  to  claim  that  the  possession  of  a  public 
office  establishes  social  equality.  If  it  were  true,  the  Bowery 
and  Fifth  Avenue  would  fraternize  ;  and  there  would  be  no 
difference  socially  between  the  typical  east-side  politician  and 

143 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Grover  Cleveland,  Judge  Parker,  or  Mayor  Low  ;  and  the 
dive-keeping  alderman  might  lead  the  "  Grand  March "  at 
the  most  fashionable  event  of  the  season.  Public  office  does 
not  and  cannot  establish  social  equality.  The  governor  of  a 
state  cannot  go  into  a  citizen's  home  and  enjoy  his  social 
board  unless  the  citizen  invites  him  to  come. 

If  the  appointment  or  election  of  a  white  man  to  office 
does  not  make  him  the  social  equal  of  every  other  white  per 
son,  by  what  species  of  logic  can  it  be  demonstrated  that  the 
holding  of  office  would  make  the  colored  people  social  equals 
of  the  white  people?  It  is  a  travesty  on  common-sense  to 
say  that  a  man  cannot  transact  any  public,  or  even  private 
business  with  another  man  without  offering  his  daughter 
in  marriage  to  him,  or  tendering  him  the  hospitality  of  his 
home. 

Outside  of  the  South,  the  world  over,  men  have  learned 
how  to  treat  a  public  official  with  becoming  decency  and 
dignity  without  raising  the  question  of  social  privileges  or 
proffering  their  daughters  in  marriage  to  such  officials ;  and 
they  have  also  learned  how  "  to  break  bread  "  with  a  cultured 
or  reputable  man  of  any  race  without  suggesting  a  marriage 
during  or  at  the  close  of  the  meal.  Truly,  as  Mr.  Schurz 
says,  these  leaders  "  are  the  worst  enemies  the  Southern 
people  have  to  fear." 

Again,  is  Southern  social  equality  in  public  affairs  so  elas 
tic  that  it  can  take  under  its  protecting  wings  murderers, 
brawlers,  moral  lepers,  amateur  pugilists,  bribe  givers,  bribe 
takers,  drunkards,  embezzlers,  defaulters,  and  what  not,  since 
they  are  white  ?  And  is  it  yet  so  lofty  in  its  own  self-esteem 
that  it  can  afford  to  assassinate  the  liberty  of  a  people,  and 
deny  to  such  men  as  Lyons,  Crum,  Dancy,  Allgood,  and 
Washington,  the  lawful  rights  of  American  citizenship  because 
of  their  color  ? 

It  is  of  interest  to  note  the  attitude  of  the  influential 
Northern  press  in  this  matter. 

144 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

The  New  York  World  asks  these  pointed  questions  :  "  But 
why  is  the  question  of '  social  equality '  never  raised  by  the 
appointment  of  white  men  to  office  or  by  their  attendance 
upon  any  public  meeting  —  no  matter  how  ignorant,  de 
praved,  or  even  dirty  they  may  be  ?  When  a  man  is 
appointed  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York  does  any  body 
think  of  his  '  social  equality '  ?  Does  any  one  feel  obliged  to 
invite  a  white  official  to  dinner,  or  does  such  a  man  consider 
that  his  commission  affects  his  social  status  ?  " 

The  Boston  Herald  declares  :  "  Americans  are  fond  of 
quoting  Robert  Burns1  immortal  line,  '  A  man  "s  a  man  for 
a1  that,  for  a"  that.1  His  '  a"  that '  meant  more  than  poverty 
and  weakness.  It  was  a  noble  soul's  protest  against  all  the 
ignoble  prejudices  based  on  conditions  of  fortune.  '  For  sC 
that '  means  notwithstanding  color  as  much  as  notwithstand 
ing  ignorance  and  humbleness.  Manliness  is  a  matter  of 
character,  and  does  not  depend  on  the  color  of  the  skin  nor 
on  the  strain  of  race.  God  has  not  made  any  race  forever 
incapable  of  it,  nor  any  race  forever  incapable  of  recognizing 
and  honoring  it.  The  habit  of  distributing  humanity  in  fixed 
castes  according  to  the  accident  of  birth,  from  which  there 
is  no  escape,  is  a  trait  of  immaturity  and  unreason.  Chris 
tianity  wars  against  it,  enlightenment  wars  against  it,  de 
mocracy  wars  against  it.  The  tendency  of  civilization  is  to 
break  the  arbitrary  fetters  of  manhood,  whether  of  fortune, 
race,  or  color,  and  acknowledge  and  honor  the  virtues,  in 
whomsoever  they  are  found.1'* 

And  the  Detroit  (Michigan)  Free  Press  uses  the  following 
language:  "This  Southern  childishness  in  relation  to  the 
social  side  of  the  race  question  can  hardly  be  treated  with 
patience.  People  of  the  North,  who  are  quite  as  good  as  the 
people  of  the  South,  sometimes  meet  negroes  at  receptions 
without  having  the  bloom  rubbed  off  their  social  prestige. 
The  social  standing  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  is,  we  think,  quite 
as  good  as  that  of  any  Southern  congressmen,  but  Mr. 
10  145 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Roosevelt  is  not  constantly  tormented  by  the  fear  that  he 
will  be  thought  no  better  than  a  '  blue-gummed  nigger '  if 
a  respectable  negro  happens  to  cross  the  sill  of  the  White 
House.'1 

This  alarm  over  social  equality  is  a  part  of  the  stock  in 
trade  of  the  Southern  leaders,  by  which  the  whites  are  in 
flamed  and  the  colored  people  oppressed.  That  it  should 
scare  so  many  good  people  in  the  South  is  amazing,  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  for  forty  years  colored  men  have  been  hold 
ing  offices  and  white  men  have  repeatedly  petitioned  for  their 
appointment  and  have  repeatedly  voted  for  colored  men  in 
local  elections  and  have  signed  their  bonds. 

But  the  ascendency  of  the  Tillmans,  the  Vardamans,  the 
Graves,  the  Walkers,  the  Aycocks,  the  Candlers,  the  Baileys, 
Carmacks,  Richardsons,  and  other  reactionists  has  broken  the 
bonds  of  mutual  regard  between  the  races,  and  by  their 
wicked  harangues  they  have  confused  the  minds  of  the  white 
people  on  the  race  question. 

These  men  are  "the  worst  enemies  the  Southern  people 
have  to  fear/'  It  would  be  a  day  of  jubilee  to  the  Southland 
and  to  the  whole  country  if  these  fire-eaters  could  be  deported 
to  some  distant,  uninhabited  island  in  the  Pacific ;  there  to 
end  their  days.  They  would  be  alive  but  a  short  time ;  for  in 
the  absence  of  negroes  to  oppress  and  lynch  and  burn,  they 
would  soon  be  oppressing  and  lynching  and  burning  each 
other,  and  it  would  not  be  long  before  the  last  of  the  brood 
would  be  reaping  what  they  have  sown.  But  as  this  cannot 
be  done,  the  country  will  have  to  bear  their  shame,  and  the 
negroes  their  violence,  for  some  time  to  come,  and  until 
returning  reason  —  "  the  moral  sense  and  the  enlightened 
spirit "  —  shall  assert  the  true  manhood  of  the  South. 

"  Negro  inferiority  "  is  a  phrase  which  appeals  more  to  the 
great  masses  than  to  the  classes  among  the  Southern  whites, 
and  the  lower  the  social  strata,  the  more  effective  is  the 
appeal.  One  can  readily  see  how  it  ministers  to  the  pride 

146 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

and  vanity  of  the  lowest  element,  "  no  matter  how  ignorant, 
depraved,  or  even  dirty  they  may  be,"  to  feel  and  be  assured 
that  they  are  better  than  any  negro. 

Under  other  circumstances,  the  negro  of  character,  educa 
tion,  and  property  would  receive  a  degree  of  consideration 
and  respect  from  the  whites  who  are  less  prosperous. 

The  better  class  of  whites  have  always  held  in  high  esteem 
character,  education,  and  property ;  and  they  would  not 
have  gone  to  extremes  in  refusing  all  recognition  to  colored 
people  possessing  these.  Indeed,  many  among  this  class  have 
given  public  expression  of  their  surprise  and  gratification  at 
the  progress  made  by  the  colored  people  since  their  emanci 
pation.  There  are  notable  instances  of  true  and  hearty 
friendship  and  ungrudging  appreciation  between  some  of  the 
whites  and  colored  people. 

The  former  slave  has  in  a  number  of  instances  provided 
for  the  support  of  the  family  of  the  former  master  which  was 
in  indigent  circumstances.  Some  have  willed  their  property 
to  the  former  master.  And  in  many  cases  the  former  master 
has  been  sympathetic  and  helpful  to  the  former  slave. 

To  destroy  respect  for  the  negro  among  the  masses,  and  all 
interest  in  the  negro  among  the  classes,  the  leaders  boldly  pro 
claim  the  doctrine  that  the  negro  is  necessarily  an  inferior 
to  the  white  man  and  that  there  can  be  no  common  inter 
est  between  them;  that  the  lowest  white  man  is  the  supe 
rior  of  the  best  negro,  and  should  therefore  receive  greater 
consideration. 

This  means  that  the  white  criminal  or  degenerate  is  above 
the  colored  man  of  probity  and  standing.  Is  it  true  that 
the  mere  tint  of  a  man's  skin  makes  him  either  superior  or 
inferior  to  another  man  ?  The  leaders  know  better,  but  it 
serves  their  purpose  to  declare  it.  And  such  teaching  has 
brought  incredible  woes  upon  the  negro. 

There  are  many  well  known  cases  of  white  criminals  and 
degenerates  who  have  been  pardoned  from  the  penitentiaries, 

147 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

and  yet  who  have  the  freedom  of  the  ballot,  a  privilege  de 
nied  to  colored  men  of  moral  and  material  value  to  the 
community. 

And  these  white  criminals  and  degenerates  have  also  other 
privileges  of  a  white  man,  while  the  same  are  denied  to  colored 
persons.  Even  in  the  state  prisons  white  criminals  are 
placed  on  an  entirely  different  footing  from  colored  criminals. 

The  idea  of  negro  inferiority  enters  into  the  framing  and 
the  execution  of  the  law.  It  has  been  molded  into  custom 
and  unwritten  law.  It  is  enforced  with  fierceness  and  cruelty 
unspeakably  shocking.  It  permeates  every  phase  of  Southern 
life,  and  the  visible  proofs  of  it  are  to  be  seen  in  every  direc 
tion  in  which  one  may  cast  the  eye. 

It  has  resulted  in  the  passage  of  "  Jim  Crow  "  laws  which 
can  be  fitly  described  only  when  called  barbarous ;  and  the 
appropriate  apellation  for  the  makers  of  such  laws  would  be 
the  "Jim  Crow"  politicians.  These  "Jim  Crow"  politicians 
have  "Jim-Crowed"  all  railway  trains,  stations,  lunch-counters, 
dining-rooms,  waiting-rooms  ;  they  have  "  Jim-Crowed  "  all 
libraries,  theatres,  museums,  art  galleries,  public  parks,  and 
places  of  public  resort  and  amusements  ;  they  have  "  Jim- 
Crowed"  the  street  cars;  they  have  "  Jim-Crowed  "  all  ferry 
boats  and  steamboats ;  they  have  "  Jim -Crowed  "  some  of  the 
trades  and  callings  ;  they  have  "  Jim-Crowed  "  the  churches 
and  schools  and  colleges  and  other  institutions  of  learning ; 
they  have  "Jim-Crowed"  the  elevators  in  stores,  office  build 
ings,  public  buildings,  and  other  places;  they  have  "Jim- 
Crowed  "  restaurants,  cafes,  ice-cream  parlors,  hotels,  saloons, 
and  even  the  soda-water  fountains  ;  they  have  "  Jim-Crowed  " 
the  courts,  the  making  and  the  administration  of  the  law  ; 
they  have  "Jim-Crowed"  all  offices,  municipal,  county,  and 
state  ;  they  have  "  Jim-Crowed  "  the  jury-box  ;  they  have 
"  Jim-Crowed  "  the  ballot-box.  In  short,  they  have  "  Jim- 
Crowed  "  everything.  They  have  "  Jim-Crowed  "the  beauti 
ful  "Sunny  South  "  into  the  "Jim  Crow  South." 

148 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

And  controlled  by  a  perverted  moral  sense  and  a  diseased 
mind,  a  mania  on  the  questions  affecting  the  negro,  some  of 
these  leaders  are  now  making  a  bold,  desperate,  even  reckless 
effort  to  "Jim-Crow"  the  President  of  the  United  States 
and  to  "Jim-Crow"  the  government  of  the  United  States 
and  to  "  Jim-Crow "  this  great  Christian  nation  of  eighty 
millions  of  free  people  into  a  "  Jim  Crow  nation."  Surely 
the  cup  of  iniquity  of  the  "Jim  Crow"  politicans  is  not  only 
full,  but  is  running  over.  Is  it  not  time  for  the  decent 
public  sentiment  of  the  South  to  crystallize  itself  and,  re 
inforced  by  the  irresistible  public  opinion  of  the  nation, 
call  a  halt  to  "  Jim  Crow  "  politicians,  and  strangle  Jim 
Crowism  ? 

This  "  Jim-Crowing  "  of  the  South  by  unequal  laws,  or  by 
statutes  which  contravene  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  and  by  barbarous  customs,  is  intended  to 
place  all  colored  persons  on  a  different  footing  from  the 
whites  before  the  law  and  in  every  other  relation  of  life,  and 
thus  force  the  race  into  hopeless  degradation.  It  means  the 
revival  of  the  ante  bellum  doctrine  that  negroes  have  no 
rights  which  white  men  are  bound  to  respect. 

Governor  Aycock  of  North  Carolina  said  :  "  We  will  force 
every  negro  in  the  South  to  hold  an  inferior  relation  to  every 
white  man !  "  Perhaps  so,  perhaps  not.  For  this  work  of 
compulsion  may  encounter  opposing  forces  which  Mr.  Aycock 
has  not  taken  into  consideration,  —  the  opposition  of  honest 
men ;  the  antagonism  of  Christian  men ;  the  overruling 
power  of  a  just  God  "who  loveth  righteousness  and  hateth 
iniquity." 

Who  would  pretend  to  say  that  this  frenzy  for  "Jim- 
Crowing"  promotes  good  government?  It  is  destructive 
to  every  incentive  to  good  government.  It  is  intended  to 
keep  the  whites  inflamed  against  the  colored.  His  eminence 
Cardinal  Gibbons  writes  to  a  leading  citizen,  saying :  "  In 
reply  to  your  letter  of  yesterday,  I  hasten  to  say  that  the 

149 


THE   AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

introduction  of  the  '  Jim  Crow '  bill  into  the  Maryland 
legislature  is  very  distressing  to  me.  Such  a  measure  must 
of  necessity  engender  very  bitter  feelings  in  the  colored  peo 
ple  against  the  whites. 

"  Peace  and  harmony  can  never  exist  when  there  is  unjust 
discrimination,  and  what  the  members  of  every  community 
must  constantly  strive  for  is  peace." 

It  may  also  be  noted  that  the  advocates  of  negro  subjuga 
tion  have  invaded  the  North  and  have  been  propagating 
their  principles  in  lecture  tours,  newspaper  interviews,  and  in 
the  endless  writing  of  letters  to  the  press.  Some  have  ob 
tained  positions  in  newspaper  offices,  in  pulpits,  and  elsewhere, 
and  have  used  these  as  opportunities  of  injuring  the  negro. 
This  statement  does  not  include  the  many  excellent  South 
erners  in  the  North,  men  of  high  character  and  who  stand  for 
liberty  and  fair  play  for  the  negro. 

Some  of  these  emissaries  have  visited  the  annual  and  other 
meetings  of  great  organizations  held  under  Northern  skies 
and  have  attempted  to  "Jim-Crow"  them.  And  the  mem 
bers  of  some  of  these  great  organizations  have  sat  as  if  in  a 
trance  and  meekly  permitted  themselves  to  be  bulldozed 
into  taking  the  "Jim  Crow "  cure.  It  is  a  wonder  that  the 
spirits  of  their  fathers  did  not  rise  up  before  them  ! 

The  Boston  Evening  Record,  referring  to  the  meeting  of  an 
important  organization  held  in  that  city,  says  :  "  Boston  was 
a  curious  place  in  the  world  for  the  stationary  engineers  to 
meet  in,  if  they  expected  endorsement  or  sympathy  for  their 
action  in  barring  the  negro  from  membership. 

"But  that  is  what  the  association  has  just  done.  The 
question  was  decided  almost  unanimously  against  the  negro, 
but  not  until  after  the  delegates  of  the  North,  and  especially 
those  from  Massachusetts,  had  expressed  themselves  in  a  most 
passionate  manner. 

"  Grant  of  New  Orleans  made  the  demand  to  have  the 
word  '  white  '  prefixed  to  the  word  '  engineers '  in  one  of  the 

150 


THE    WAR    ON    NEGRO    SUFFRAGE 

articles  of  the  constitution.  Mr.  Grant  said  that  the  busi 
ness  men  in  the  South  look  upon  the  engineers1  association  as 
one  of  standing ;  and  should  the  negro  be  allowed  the  social 
equality  which  he  does  not  deserve,  the  association  would  be 
ruined  in  the  South  and  the  Southern  branches  would  drop 
out.  '  This  is  the  white  man's  country.  Africa  is  where  the 
negro  belongs,1  he  said.  Grant  was  loudly  applauded. 

"Mr.  Optenberg  of  Wisconsin  upheld  the  negro.  Mr. 
Babbit  of  Worcester  declared  he  would  stand  for  the  colored 
man  at  all  times.  C.  S.  Howarth  of  Fall  River,  speaking  for 
the  negro,  was  hissed  for  at  least  a  full  minute,  and  cries  of 
'  Put  him  out ! '  were  heard  all  over  the  convention  floor.  The 
speaker,  after  exalting  the  negro,  said,  '  Why,  there  are  men 
in  this  room  whom  I  would  rather  discard  than  the  negro.' "" 

So  the  "  Jim  Crowites "  of  the  South  are  using  the  free 
men  of  the  North  to  strike  down  the  negroes  on  the  ground 
of  color  alone ;  and  deny  them  the  right  to  use  their  talents 
to  make  an  honest  living.  Such  organizations  control  in 
large  measure  the  employment  of  workmen. 

It  is  not  a  little  amazing  that  great  educational  institu 
tions  in  the  North  should  invite  to  their  lecture  platform  the 
worst  specimens,  the  most  rabid  and  frenzied  "  Jim  Crow " 
leaders  —  well  knowing  their  reputation  for  abusive  and 
intemperate  attacks  on  the  negro ;  and  each  attack  creates 
race  antagonism.  There  were  colored  students  in  these  uni 
versities,  young  men  and  women  of  character,  scholarship,  and 
promise.  These  students  were  compelled  to  sit  quietly  and 
hear  their  race  denounced  in  bitter  and  violent  language. 
This  is  not  in  keeping  with  the  fitness  of  things.  The  efforts 
of  these  emissaries  are  designed  to  break  the  bond  of  peace 
between  the  negro  and  the  Northern  white  man  and  stir  up 
race  strife  and  Southernize  the  North. 

The  policy  and  methods  of  the  reactionists  are  a  direct 
challenge  to  the  Church.  They  are  incompatible  with  the 
essentials  of  Christianity.  The  Church  will  not  assent  to  the 

151 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

teaching  that  the  color  of  the  skin  is  superior  to  character, 
intelligence,  thrift,  godliness ;  that  the  tint  of  a  man's  skin  is 
sufficient  reason  to  deny  him  the  rights  of  citizenship  in  a  free 
republic,  for  the  creation  and  preservation  of  which  his  blood 
was  spilled ;  that  this  tint  is  a  justifiable  ground  to  deny 
him  manhood  right  and  to  bar  every  place  against  him  in 
the  public  service.  "  God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way  his 
wonders  to  perform,"  and  it  may  be  that  the  very  madness 
of  the  policy  and  acts  of  the  Southern  politicians  who  are 
bent  on  destroying  the  suffrage  of  the  negro,  and  alienating 
him  from  membership  in  human  society,  may  be  God's  way 
of  bringing  discomfiture  to  them,  safety  to  the  negro,  and 
peace  and  honor  to  the  republic. 


152 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  FALSE  ALARM  OF  NEGRO 
DOMINATION 

ALTHOUGH,  owing  to  the  entailments  of  slavery,  a 
majority  of  the  white  people  of  the  South  may,  at  the 
present  time,  be  opposed  to  negro  suffrage,  and  al 
though  a  few  people  of  the  North  may  sneer  at  it,  neverthe 
less,  facts  and  figures  will  show  that  the  ballot  in  the  hands 
of  the  negro  has  been  of  priceless  value  to  the  republic.  It 
is  a  national  asset  to  be  depended  upon  in  emergencies.  By 
its  service  to  the  republic  in  trying  ordeals  it  has  demon 
strated  its  right  to  exist.  No  element  of  the  population  is 
so  broadly  and  intensely  national  in  character  as  the  negro. 
The  Reverend  E.  F.  Williams,  D.  D.,  of  Chicago,  recently  said  : 
"  We  need  the  negro  as  much  as  he  needs  us.  In  war  he 
shouldered  the  musket  and  knew  how  to  shoot  straight.  His 
ballot  has  been  cast,  when  allowed  to  be  cast,  for  the  good  of 
the  nation.  As  we  have  needed  him  in  the  past,  we  shall 
certainly  need  him  in  the  future."" 

There  is  no  danger  in  negro  suffrage.  It  is  rather  a  safety- 
valve.  The  cry  of  negro  domination  is  a  false  alarm. 

In  the  following  table  are  given  the  states  which  may  come 
under  the  general  designation  of  Southern  states ;  also  the 
total  white  and  the  total  colored  population  of  each,  as  well 
as  the  total  white  and  the  total  colored  vote  of  each,  accord 
ing  to  the  census  of  1900.  A  glance  at  this  table  will  show 
the  absurdity  of  the  alarm  of  negro  domination.  It  will  be 
seen  that  in  the  South  as  a  whole  there  are  more  than  two 
white  men  to  every  colored  man.  So  that  the  frightful 
apparition  of  negro  domination  does  not  loom  up  with  such 
hideousness  on  the  political  horizon  as  the  alarmists  would 
make  one  believe. 

153 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 


States 

Total 
White 
Population 

Total 
Colored 
Population 

Total 
White 
Vote 

Total 
Colored 
Vote 

Alabama,                         . 

1,001,152 

827,307 

232  294 

181,471 

944,580 

366,866 

226,597 

87,157 

Florida        

297,333 

230,730 

77,962 

61,417 

Georgia                 .          . 

1,181,294 

1,034,813 

277,496 

223,073 

Kentucky   
Louisiana    ...... 

1,862,309 
769,612 

284,706 
650,804 

469,206 

177,878 

74,728 
147,348 

Maryland.    ..... 

952  424 

235,064 

260,979 

60,406 

641,200 

907,630 

150,530 

197,936 

Missouri      ...... 

2,944,843 

161,234 

809,797 

46,418 

North  Carolina    .... 
South  Carolina     .... 
Tennessee  

1,263,603 
.557,807 
1  540,186 

624,469 
782,321 
480,243 

289,263 
130,375 
375,046 

127,114 
152,860 
112,236 

Texas      

2,426,669 
1,192,855 

620,722 
660,722 

599,961 
301,379 

136,875 
146,122 

West  Virginia      .... 

915,233 

13,49-9 

233,129 

14,786 

Special  note  should  be  made  of  the  important  fact  that  in 
only  two  of  the  Southern  states  does  the  colored  population 
exceed  that  of  the  whites;  that  is  in  South  Carolina  and 
Mississippi.  In  all  the  other  Southern  states,  the  white 
population  predominates  over  the  colored.  So  that  the  cry 
of  negro  domination  is  insincere.  If  the  matter  were,  how 
ever,  reduced  to  the  simple  question  of  the  procurement  of 
good  government  in  the  Southern  states,  no  patriotic  citizen 
in  the  republic  would  utter  a  single  protest  against  any  law 
treating  all  races  alike. 

Every  intelligent  colored  man  would  allow  that  the  race 
can  work  out  its  destiny  under  equal  laws,  but  would  be 
cruelly  handicapped  if  they  are  made  unequal  and  oppressive. 

Under  normal  conditions  Collector  Crum,  Register  Lyons, 
Recorder  Dancy,  Principal  Washington,  and  the  army  of 
negro  school-teachers,  preachers,  professional  men,  mechanics, 
and  hardy  toilers  would  all  line  up  on  the  side  of  good 
government.  This  has  occurred  repeatedly,  in  local  elec- 

154 


FALSE    ALARM    OF    NEGRO     DOMINATION 

tions :  as  in  Atlanta,  Nashville,  and  other  places,  when  the 
more  reputable  whites,  men  and  women,  were  freely  admitted 
to  address  meetings  in  colored  churches  for  the  purpose  of 
rallying  the  colored  voters  to  aid  them  in  overthrowing  "  ring 
government."  This  met  with  success  in  every  case. 

When  the  liberty  of  the  colored  man  has  not  been  at 
stake,  he  has  never  failed  to  respond  to  the  kindly  entreaties 
of  the  better  class  of  whites.  He  wants  good  and  just  gov 
ernment  :  it  is  his  salvation.  But  when  the  Southern  leaders 
set  themselves  to  the  work  of  disfranchising  by  the  whole 
sale  the  colored  race  without  regard  to  their  merit,  and  grant 
the  franchise  to  every  white  man  regardless  of  his  demerit,  — 
the  immorality  and  unrighteousness  of  the  act  is  without 
question ;  and  a  definite,  a  direct  issue  is  joined  between 
justice  and  injustice,  humanity  and  inhumanity,  the  friends 
of  liberty  and  the  enemies  of  liberty. 

Let  us  briefly  analyze  the  statistics  regarding  the  voters  in 
the  states  which  have  passed  or  are  contemplating  the  enact 
ment  of  wholesale  disfranchisement. 

In  Alabama  there  are  232,294  white  voters  against  181,471 
colored  voters  :  the  whites  having  a  clear  majority  over  the 
negroes  of  50,823.  Any  kind  of  a  fair  education  or  property 
qualification,  or  both,  would  probably  reduce  the  colored  vote 
not  far  from  fifty  per  cent,  while  the  white  vote  would  not 
be  largely  affected.  What,  then,  becomes  of  the  apparition 
of  negro  domination  ?  Why  resort  under  false  pretences  to 
wholesale  disfranchisement  ? 

In  Louisiana  the  white  vote  is  177,878 ;  against  147,348 
colored  voters  :  the  whites  having  a  clear  majority  of  30,530. 
Here  again,  any  kind  of  a  fair  education  or  property  qualifi 
cation,  or  both,  would  operate  to  cut  the  colored  vote  in  half, 
making  the  white  vote  at  the  ballot-box  twice  as  large  as  the 
the  colored  vote.  What  chance  would  one  colored  man  in 
Louisiana  have  in  outvoting  two  white  men  ?  Wholesale 
disfranchisement  is  a  subterfuge. 

155 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

In  North  Carolina  the  white  vote  is  289,263  against 
127,114  colored  voters  :  the  whites  having  a  clear  majority 
over  the  negroes  of  162,149 ;  this  majority  itself  being 
35,035  more  than  the  total  colored  vote.  And  under  a  fair 
educational  or  property  qualification,  or  both,  the  whites 
would  be  impregnable,  —  having  at  the  ballot-box  probably 
not  less  than  three  white  men  to  one  colored  man.  In  this 
instance  the  cry  of  negro  domination  is  a  hollow  mockery, 
and  wholesale  disfranchisement  is  the  perpetration  of  a  fraud. 

In  Virginia  the  white  vote  is  301,379  against  146,122 
colored  voters :  the  whites  having  a  clear  majority  over  the 
negroes  of  155,257 ;  this  majority  by  itself  being  nearly 
10,000  larger  than  the  total  colored  vote.  In  this  case  too, 
a  fair  educational  or  property  qualification,  or  both,  would 
intrench  the  whites  in  power, — giving  them  three  white  men 
to  one  colored  man,  with  some  thousands  to  spare.  The 
evidence  is  cumulative  that  the  alarm  of  negro  domination  is 
a  sham,  and  that  wholesale  disfranchisement  is  an  outrage. 

In  Maryland,  where  the  Southern  "  bloody  shirt "  is  being 
waved  so  vigorously  by  Senator  Gorman,  and  where  he  is 
making  the  effort  of  his  life  to  destroy  the  liberties  of  the 
colored  people  —  the  total  white  vote  is  260,979  against 
barely  60,406  colored  voters;  the  whites  having  a  clear 
majority  of  200,573  over  the  negroes.  There  are  actually 
more  than  four  white  men  in  the  state  to  every  colored  man. 
Here  disfranchisement  is  a  crime.  Senator  Gorman  is  fas 
tening  a  foul  blot  on  the  good  name  and  honor  of  Maryland. 

In  Kentucky  the  Southern  "  bloody  shirt "  is  also  being 
flaunted  with  even  greater  recklessness,  and  the  liberty  of  the 
negroes  hangs  in  the  balance.  There  are  in  this  state 
469,206  white  voters  against  but  74,728  colored  voters :  the 
whites  having  a  clear  majority  of  394,478  over  the  negroes, 
and  there  being  about  six  white  men  in  the  state  to  every 
colored  man.  In  these  latter  two  cases,  the  cry  of  negro 
domination  is  too  ridiculous  for  consideration,  and  the  dis- 

156 


FALSE   ALARM    OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

franchisement  of  the  race  is  a  proceeding  of  which  a  civilized 
people  ought  to  be  incapable.  May  the  nobler  spirit  of 
"  Old  Kentucky  "  keep  this  stain  from  her  proud  escutcheon  ! 

As  before  mentioned,  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi  are 
the  two  exceptions  where  the  colored  population  are  in  the 
majority. 

In  South  Carolina  the  total  white  vote  is  130,375  against 
152,860  colored  voters :  the  colored  having  a  clear  ma- 
ority  over  the  whites  of  22,485.  But  a  fair  educational 
or  property  qualification,  or  both,  would  probably  reduce 
the  colored  vote  below  75,000 ;  thus  giving  the  whites  a 
safe  margin. 

In  Mississippi  the  total  white  vote  is  150,530  against 
197,936  colored  voters  :  the  colored  having  a  clear  majority 
over  the  whites  of  47,406  voters.  But  here  again,  a  fair 
educational  or  property  qualification,  or  both,  would  proba 
bly  cut  the  total  colored  vote  in  half,  giving  the  whites  above 
50,000  majority  at  the  ballot-box.  If  the  "district  system  " 
which  already  applies  to  Mississippi  should  also  be  adopted 
in  South  Carolina,  white  control  would  be  absolutely  cer 
tain  without  the  demoralizing  evils  and  the  deadly  effects 
on  Southern  conscience  and  public  morality  of  wholesale 
disfranchisement.  Under  this  "  district  system  "  the  "  black  " 
counties  are  consolidated  or  formed  into  one  "  district,1' 
with  a  limited  number  of  representatives  and  senators  in 
the  legislature,  while  the  great  bulk  of  representatives  and 
senators  are  elected  from  a  number  of  other  "districts."  The 
more  important  local  officers,  as  the  conditions  require  for 
the  good  of  all,  are  made  appointive  by  the  governor. 

If  in  an  honest  effort  it  shall  seem  necessary  in  the  case  of 
South  Carolina  and  Mississippi  to  take  precautionary  meas 
ures  to  secure  good  government,  and  laws  are  made  which  are 
reasonable,  and  humane,  and  life  and  property  are  protected, 
and  the  civil  and  political  rights  are  respected  of  all,  without 
regard  to  race,  who  measure  up  to  the  fixed  qualification,  — 

157 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

then  there  can  be  no  reasonable  ground  of  complaint  from 
any  person.  As  we  have  seen,  in  not  one  of  the  other 
Southern  states  does  the  colored  vote  portend  negro  domina 
tion.  In  most  of  them,  it  is  but  a  minor  fraction  of  the 
whole  vote.  In  all  of  them,  under  just  and  equal  laws,  good 
government  could  be  assured. 

But  wholesale  disfranchisement  has  bearing  on  others  be 
sides  the  negro. 

The  New  York  World  speaks  most  advisedly  when  it 
says  :  "  If  the  Southern  Democrats  who  are  forcing  these 
measures  do  not  perceive  their  ultimate  inevitable  conse 
quence  they  are  lacking  in  political  understanding.  The 
preponderating  vote  of  the  Northern  states  will  not  con 
sent  permanently  to  representation,  in  Congress  and  in  the 
electoral  college,  of  millions  of  disfranchised  inhabitants  in 
the  Southern  states.  Especially  is  this  true  when  the  dis 
franchising  qualifications  apply  and  are  intended  to  operate, 
not  against  illiteracy  or  shiftlessness  or  unworthiness,  but 
solely  against  color. 

"  In  the  few  states  of  the  '  dark  belt '  where  the  colored 
population  outnumbers  the  white,  precautions  against '  negro 
rule '  are  justified,  even  by  residents  from  the  North  living 
there,  by  the  '  higher  law '  of  necessity.  But  in  border 
states  like  Maryland  and  Kentucky,  where  white  preponder 
ance  is  overpowering,  no  such  excuse  can  be  urged.  Nor  do 
the  Democrats  who  are  pushing  these  measures  seem  to  have 
calculated  the  possible  effect  upon  their  party  in  doubtful 
Northern  states  of  arraying  solidly  against  it  the  very  con 
siderable  negro  vote.  This  issue  may  make  the  South  solid, 
but  it  has  another  side. 

"  Back,  however,  of  the  questions  of  political  expediency 
and  of  the  inequality  growing  out  of  the  representation  of 
non-voters,  is  the  deeper  question  of  constitutional  guaranties 
and  of  the  anomaly  and  danger  in  a  republic  of  an  enormous 
number  of  citizens  disfranchised  for  their  color  alone." 

158 


FALSE   ALARM    OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

"  Disfranchised  for  their  color  alone "  is  the  burning 
shame,  the  condemning  truth  in  this  whole  wretched  affair. 
And  it  is  clap-trap  to  urge  in  justification  that  the  negroes 
pay  but  a  very  small  fraction  of  the  taxes. 

The  state  of  South  Carolina  has  a  total  colored  population 
of  782, 321.  To  say  that  these  negroes  are  not  the  tax-payers 
of  that  state  is  the  merest  twaddle.  They  are  more  than  the 
tax-payers ;  they  are  pre-eminently  the  tax-makers.  And 
the  makers  of  the  taxes  are  quite  as  important  to  the  well- 
being  and  prosperity  of  the  state  as  the  payers  of  the  taxes. 

The  negroes  are  the  producing  element,  the  backbone  of 
every  department  of  labor  and  industry.  To  still  their  hands 
would  bring  about  the  paralysis  and  ruin  of  every  business 
interest  in  the  state.  For  they  represent  the  ^productive 
and  the  industrial  life.  What  would  the  Custom  House  in 
Charleston  amount  to  without  the  patronage  of  negro  pro 
ductivity  ?  How  could  the  city  of  Charleston  itself  flourish 
without  the  toil  of  the  thousands  of  negroes  within  her 
gates,  and  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  them  in  the  state,  — 
the  fruits  of  whose  labor,  like  a  never  ending  stream,  are 
poured  into  her  lap  ?  Without  the  negro  productivity  in 
this  state,  the  commercial  and  other  great  interests  would 
drop  to  nil.  Further,  the  great  educational  system,  and  all 
the  charitable  and  benevolent  institutions  of  the  state  are 
dependent  on  negro  productivity.  It  is  not  to  be  inferred 
from  this  that  there  are  no  white  toilers,  for  there  are  many ; 
but  neither  in  numbers,  nor  in  the  variety  of  work,  nor  in 
the  total  fruitfulness  of  toil,  do  they  approach  unto  the 
colored  people.  If  the  resources  of  the  state  were  limited 
to  the  fruits  of  white  labor,  South  Carolina  would  be  in 
hopeless,  irretrievable  bankruptcy. 

The  denial,  then,  of  the  colored  man's  liberty,  the  refusal  to 
allow  him  any  share  in  the  government  under  which  he  lives 
and  of  which  he  is  a  copartner  and  to  the  support  of  which 
he  is  not  only  the  largest,  but  the  indispensable  contributor, 

159 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

is  a  wrong  which  must  invoke  the  condemnation  of  honest 
men  and  the  frowning  displeasure  of  a  righteous  God. 

What  has  been  related  herewith  in  reference  to  South 
Carolina  would  hold  true  also  as  regards  Mississippi,  with 
her  total  colored  population  of  907,630.  The  negroes  are 
the  mainstay  of  her  productivity,  —  the  tillers  of  her  soil, 
the  makers  of  her  taxes,  the  guarantors  of  her  prosperity,  the 
supporters  of  her  institutions.  Without  the  fruitfulness 
of  the  negroes'*  toil  Mississippi  would  be  in  stagnation  as  a 
commonwealth,  helpless,  beggared. 

In  the  several  other  Southern  states,  while  the  proportion 
of  the  negroes  is  not  so  large,  yet  their  vast  productivity 
and  their  varied  labors,  especially  as  the  tillers  of  the  soil, 
are  generally  regarded  as  the  factors  of  paramount  importance 
in  the  development  and  prosperity  of  the  South.  Agricul 
ture  is  the  life  of  the  South,  and  negro  labor  is  the  life  of 
agriculture. 

But  in  the  wholesale  disfranchisement  of  the  colored  race, 
a  question  of  greater  gravity  and  far  wider  scope  is  involved 
than  that  of  cheating  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
in  order  to  destroy  the  liberty  of  the  negro.  This  other 
issue  affects  the  constitutional  rights  of  great  states  and  all 
their  people.  It  destroys  representative  government.  For 
the  wholesale  disfranchisement  of  the  colored  race  in  the 
South  necessarily  results  in  the  "partial  disfranchisement 
of  every  state  in  the  North,  by  lessening  the  propor 
tional  share  of  every  Northern  man  in  the  government  of 
his  country. 

Concerning  this,  the  New  York  Press  says :  "  The  fraudu 
lent  misrepresentation,  in  Congress  and  the  electoral  college, 
of  the  10,000,000  American  blacks,  chiefly  resident  in  the 
Southern  states,  is  no  more  a  question  to  be  hushed  up  and 
put  off  than  was  that  of  the  felonious  servitude  of  their 
4,000,000  predecessors.  Northern  manhood  revolted  then 
at  the  spectacle  of  a  great  party  paltering  with  a  national 

160 


FALSE    ALARM    OF   NEGRO    DOMINATION 

sin  because  it  was  the  darling  of  a  powerful  section.  North 
ern  manhood  will  revolt  again  if  the  spectacle  is  repeated. 

"  It  has  stood  for  a  good  while  the  glaring  violation  of  its 
rights  by  which  one  vote  between  the  Potomac  and  the  Gulf 
counts  for  two  between  the  Potomac  and  the  Lakes.  But  it 
will  not  stand  much  longer,  we  verily  believe,  the  gag  that 
chokes  in  the  old  Calhoun  fashion  all  utterance  upon  a 
peculiar  institution  of  the  South  in  the  halls  of  Congress." 

The  Wisconsin  Evening  Journal,  of  Milwaukee,  speaks  to 
the  point  in  saying :  "  Henry  Watterson,  of  Louisville,  .  .  . 
addressed  the  Hamilton  Club  of  Chicago,  last  night.  .  .  . 

"  Watterson's  whole  speech  was  directed  to  the  point  that 
the  negro  should  be  disfranchised  in  the  Southern  states  as 
unfit  for  the  privilege  of  suffrage.  There  are  many  white 
men  throughout  the  country  who  are  unfit  for  the  ballot,  and 
they  are  permitted  to  vote  merely  because  they  have  a  white 
skin.  While  Watterson  was  urging  the  disfranchisement  of 
the  Southern  blacks  he  did  not  say  a  word  in  favor  of  reduc 
ing  the  Southern  representation  in  Congress  on  account  of  the 
diminished  vote  in  the  Southern  states.  Watterson  ignored 
the  paramount  principle,  which  is  this  :  The  disfranchisement 
of  the  negro  is  a  gross  injustice  to  white  people  in  the  North, 
for  one  white  vote  in  South  Carolina  or  Virginia  is  equal  to 
five  white  votes  in  Wisconsin.  This  establishes  a  permanent 
Southern  aristocracy  to  rule  the  Union.  Watterson  affects 
to  be  a  Democrat,  but  he  is  certainly  a  false  one,  because 
such  inequality  of  suffrage  cannot  be  permitted  in  a  republic. 

"The  South  will  find  before  it  gets  through  with  this 
matter  that  it  will  be  sorely  punished  by  the  reduction  of  its 
representation  in  Congress.  The  North  begins  to  wake  up 
on  this  question.  The  Union  League  Club  of  New  York, 
one  of  the  strongest  and  most  influential  organizations  in  the 
United  States,  perceives  that  by  the  disfranchisement  of  the 
negro  the  nation  is  drifting  into  the  condition  which  brought 
on  the  great  Civil  War.  Cornelius  N.  Bliss,  one  of  the  first 
11  161 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

citizens  in  the  great  metropolis,  and  Secretary  of  the  Interior 
under  President  McKinley,  has  taken  hold  of  the  matter  and 
has  issued  a  thousand  circulars  to  the  leading  political  organi 
zations  in  the  United  States  pointing  out  the  dangers  that 
will  inure  to  our  country  if  the  Southern  blacks  are  disfran 
chised.  This  disfranchisement  will  not  only  be  a  gross  viola 
tion  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  but 
will  establish  an  aristocracy  of  white  voters  in  the  Southern 
states  which  will  rule  the  nation  as  despotically  as  did  the 
slaveholders  before  the  Civil  War." 

When  the  South  disfranchises  the  negro,  and  at  the  same 
time  appropriates  to  itself  the  full  quota  of  representatives 
in  the  Congress  and  members  in  the  electoral  college  based 
on  negro  citizenship,  it  does  by  this  act  unduly  increase  its 
power  in  the  government  and  destroys  the  equality  of  repre 
sentation  which  should  exist  among  the  people  of  all  the 
states. 

But  more  significant  still :  when  the  South  denies  the 
negro  his  rights  as  a  citizen,  and  at  the  same  time  counts 
the  very  last  one  of  them  to  increase  its  representation  — 
thus  offsetting  the  entire  negro  population  against  an 
equal  number  of  Northern  white  people  —  is  this  hot  equiv 
alent  to  saying  that,  while  the  negro  shall  not  be  the  equal 
of  the  Southern  white  man  at  the  ballot-box,  he  shall  be 
the  equal  of  the  Northern  white  man  and  shall  offset  his 
vote  ? 

The  South  is  thus  using  the  negro  to  increase  her  propor 
tional  representation  in  the  national  council,  in  order  ulti 
mately  to  accomplish  the  Southern  domination  of  the  republic 
and  intrench  the  traditions  of  a  barbarous  system  of  slavery. 
For  instance,  the  state  of  Connecticut  has  a  white  popula 
tion  of  892,424  ;  the  state  of  Mississippi  has  a  colored  popu 
lation  of  907,630;  thus  Mississippi,  by  playing  its  colored 
population  against  the  white  population  of  Connecticut, 
completely  offsets  and  neutralizes  the  power  of  this  great 

162 


FALSE    ALARM    OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

state  in  the  House  of  Representatives  and  in  the  electoral 
college. 

The  state  of  Maine  has  a  white  population  of  692,226 ; 
the  state  of  Virginia  has  a  colored  population  of  660,722  ;  thus 
Virginia,  by  playing  its  colored  population  against  the  white 
population  of  Maine,  puts  the  quietus  on  every  white  man 
in  that  state,  and  makes  the  voice  of  that  state  of  non-effect 
in  the  House  and  in  the  electoral  college. 

The  state  of  Minnesota  has  a  white  population  of  1,737,036  ; 
the  states  of  Alabama,  Louisiana,  and  Florida  have  a  combined 
colored  population  of  1,708,841 ;  thus  Alabama,  Louisiana, 
and  Florida,  by  playing  their  colored  population  against  the 
white  population  of  Minnesota,  neutralize  the  voice  and  power 
of  this  great  state  in  the  House  of  Representatives  and  in 
the  electoral  college.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  continue 
these  comparisons  further,  as  it  must  be  apparent  that  the 
wholesale  disfranchisement  of  the  negro  in  the  South,  in  its 
practical  effects,  may  be  the  wholesale  disfranchisement  of 
great  states  in  the  North.  It  is  beyond  question  the  partial 
disfranchisement  of  every  Northern  state. 

The  colored  people  are  either  citizens  or  they  are  not 
citizens.  If  they  are  not  citizens,  the  South  has  no  ground 
in  law  or  morals  to  claim  representation  for  them.  If  they 
are  citizens,  their  disfranchisement  is  a  crime  against  citizen 
ship.  For  the  colored  people,  who  are  denied  citizenship  en 
masse  in  the  South,  are  nevertheless  counted  and  used  as 
equal  citizens  en  masse  to  neutralize  the  effectiveness  of  citi 
zenship  in  the  North ;  thus  bringing  about  the  curious 
anomaly  that  the  colored  man  is  not  a  citizen  to  cast  his 
own  vote,  or  share  in  the  government,  but  he  is  a  citizen,  an 
equal  citizen,  to  offset  or  nullify  a  Northern  citizen"^  vote  and 
promote  Southern  domination  of  the  government. 

But  this  condition  must  be  regarded  from  still  another 
point  of  view.  South  Carolina  has  a  white  population  of 
557,807,  while  Colorado  has  a  white  population  of  about  the 

163 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

same  size,  being  529,046 ;  and  yet  the  white  men  of  South 
Carolina  elect  seven  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
while  the  same  number  of  white  men  in  Colorado  elect  only 
three  members. 

North  Carolina  and  Virginia  have  a  combined  white  popu 
lation  of  2,456,458 ;  Indiana  has  a  white  population  of 
2,458,502 ;  and  yet  the  white  men  of  North  Carolina  and 
Virginia  jointly  elect  twenty  members  of  the  House,  while 
the  same  number  of  white  men  in  Indiana  elect  only  thirteen 
members. 

Alabama,  Louisiana,  and  Florida  have  a  combined  white 
population  of  2,068,097  ;  Wisconsin  has  a  white  population 
of  2,057,911  ;  and  yet  the  white  men  of  Alabama,  Louisiana, 
and  Florida  jointly  elect  nineteen  members  of  the  House, 
while  the  same  number  of  white  men  in  Wisconsin  elect  only 
eleven  members.  Georgia,  Mississippi,  and  Arkansas  have  a 
combined  white  population  of  2,767,074  ;  Massachusetts  has 
a  white  population  of  2,769,074 ;  and  yet  the  white  men  of 
Georgia,  Mississippi,  and  Arkansas  jointly  elect  twenty-six 
members  of  the  House,  while  the  same  number  of  white  men 
in  Massachusetts  elect  only  fourteen  members. 

Again,  Louisiana  with  a  white  population  of  769,612 
elects  seven  members  of  the  House,  while  Connecticut  with  a 
white  population  of  892,424  elects  only  five  members,  and 
Nebraska  with  a  white  population  of  1,056,529  elects  only  six 
members. 

Mississippi  with  a  white  population  of  641,200  elects  eight 
members  of  the  House,  while  Kansas  with  a  white  population 
of  1,416,319  elects  only  eight  members.  Georgia  with  a  white 
population  of  1,181,294  elects  eleven  members  of  the  House, 
while  Iowa  with  a  white  population  of  2,218,667  elects  only 
eleven  members.  South  Carolina  with  a  white  population  of 
557,807  elects  seven  members  of  the  House,  while  Maine, 
New  Hampshire,  and  Delaware  with  a  combined  white  popu 
lation  of  1,255,994  elect  only  seven  members.  Florida  with 

164 


FALSE    ALARM    OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

a  white  population  of  297,333  elects  three  members  of  the 
House,  while  Rhode  Island  with  a  white  population  of 
419,050  elects  only  two  members. 

Expressed  in  the  popular  vernacular,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
Southern  leaders  are  playing  their  game  with  loaded  dice. 
Furthermore,  as  recounted,  through  the  disfranchisement  of 
the  colored  race,  the  white  people  of  the  South  elect  about 
fifty  members  of  the  House  and  about  fifty  members  in  the 
electoral  college  which  are  based  on  the  count  of  the  negro 
population. 

The  power  thus  gained  and  wielded  is  a  standing  peril  to 
republican  government.  It  has  happened  in  the  memory, 
not  of  "the  oldest  inhabitant,"  but  of  a  majority  of  the 
people  now  living,  that  a  single  vote  in  the  electoral  college 
decided  the  election  of  a  president  of  the  United  States. 
Mr.  Hayes  was  elected  by  a  bare  majority  of  one  vote  :  re 
ceiving  185  votes,  to  184  for  Mr.  Tilden. 

Not  once  but  many  times  in  the  history  of  the  govern 
ment  a  single  vote,  or  a  small  number  of  votes,  has  decided 
the  fate  of  a  measure  of  greatest  national  importance  in 
Congress. 

In  a  close  and  exciting  campaign,  or  even  in  calm  delibera 
tion,  these  fifty  votes  unrighteously  and  unlawfully  seized 
and  cast  by  the  white  people  of  the  South  may  not  only 
determine  the  election  of  a  president  of  the  United  States, 
but  may  also  revolutionize  the  great  national  policies  of  the 
government.  As  we  have  seen,  some  of  the  great  states  of 
the  North  would  be  practically  disfranchised  or  deprived  of 
an  equal  share  in  the  election  of  a  president,  and  an  equal 
voice  in  matters  of  legislation.  Such  a  miscarriage  of  justice 
might  occur  at  any  time  as  would  bring  ruin  to  the  great 
financial,  commercial,  and  industrial  life  of  the  nation.  A 
condition  of  affairs  so  manifestly  unequal  and  unjust,  and  so 
perilous,  would  seem  to  demand  the  application  of  a  drastic 
treatment. 

165 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Another  feature  of  this  matter  which  should  command  the 
serious  attention  of  the  American  people  is  the  decadence 
of  popular  government  in  the  South  under  the  ascendency 
of  the  present  leadership.  It  is  no  longer  the  government  of 
the  people,  but  the  government  of  the  "  Jim  Crow  "  leaders, 
for  the  "  Jim  Crow "  leaders,  and  by  the  "  Jim  Crow " 
leaders. 

The  Honorable  John  S.  Wise,  a  descendant  of  a  former 
governor  of  Virginia,  in  a  public  address  said  :  "  No  re 
publican  form  of  government  exists  in  Virginia  to-day.  The 
Czar  of  Russia  does  not  hold  more  absolute  sway  than  is  held 
by  the  fractional  oligarchy  of  whites  in  the  Southern  states. 
By  the  present  system  of  registration  in  Virginia,  100,000 
names  have  been  stricken  from  the  lists  in  the  last  twelve 
months. 

"The  government  of  the  United  States  should  say  that 
such  a  practice  is  either  right  or  wrong.  It  must  be  one  or 
the  other.  The  government  has  the  right  and  the  power  to 
stop  it  if  it  will  but  enforce  that  power.  The  indifference  of 
the  government  is  forcing  the  colored  men  of  the  South  to 
become  law-breakers.  A  crisis  is  surely  approaching."" 

The  New  York  World  says  :  "  The  World  has  noted  the 
travesty  on  popular  government  in  South  Carolina,  where  at 
the  recent  election  less  than  40,000  votes  were  cast  in  a  state 
having  more  than  280,000  men  of  voting  age. 

"  The  showing  in  Louisiana  was  even  worse.  This  Gulf 
state  has  325,000  citizens  of  voting  age,  yet  the  total  vote 
cast  on  November  4  was  only  26,265,  of  which  22,218  were 
Democratic  and  4,047  Republican.  The  Times- Democrat 
puts  it  in  another  way  in  saying  that  '  about  one  out  of  six 
of  the  persons  who  can  vote  under  the  constitutional  pro 
visions  took  the  trouble  to  pay  their  poll-tax,  get  registered, 
go  to  the  polls,  and  cast  their  ballots.'  The  negroes,  some 
thing  less  than  half  the  population,  are,  of  course,  for  the  most 
part  disfranchised. 

166 


FALSE    ALARM   OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

"Here  is  a  state  having  six  representatives  in  Congress 
elected  by  22,218  voters  —  the  republican  candidates  getting 
on  an  average  only  578  votes  each.  There  are  several  separ 
ate  Congressional  districts  in  this  city  that  cast  more  votes 
than  were  polled  in  the  entire  state  of  Louisiana.  This  is  a 
state  government  neither  republican  in  form  nor  democratic 
in  fact." 

The  following  table  will  show  the  votes  cast  in  the  eight 
congressional  districts  in  Mississippi,  as  compared  with  the 
first  eight  districts  of  Indiana  :  — 

IKDIANA.  MISSISSIPPI 

First  District 41,397  8,245 

Second  District 42,788  2,528 

Third  District 38,007  1,146 

Fourth  District 41,793  2,834 

Fifth  District 47,333  3,081 

Sixth  District 44,705  1,774 

Seventh  District 48,456  2,022 

Eighth  District 49,693  1,433 

Total 354,172  23,063 

Such  wholesale  disfranchisement  of  the  negroes  has  reacted 
on  the  whites.  They  have  ceased  to  go  to  the  ballot-box. 
And  this  gives  the  "  Jim  Crow  "  leaders  their  opportunity  to 
establish  a  corrupt  oligarchy  which  rules  with  a  rod  of  iron. 

Fair  and  just  election  laws  would  result  in  bringing  prac 
tically  every  colored  voter  to  the  polls  at  every  election  ;  for 
the  negro,  whenever  the  opportunity  is  given  him,  takes 
pride  in  the  exercise  of  sovereignty.  And  the  knowledge 
that  the  colored  vote  would  be  cast  at  any  election  would 
arouse  and  bring  forth  the  white  vote.  Thus  a  healthy 
political  condition  would  result.  Nothing  would  do  so  much 
to  promote  good  government  in  the  South  as  the  expectation 
that  large  bodies  of  colored  voters  were  sure  to  be  at  the 
polls.  It  would  rally  the  whites  and  secure  the  nomination 
of  the  best  men  for  offices.  But  this,  the  "  Jim  Crowites  " 
do  not  want,  for  their  occupation  would  be  gone. 

167 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

These  states  are  in  the  control  of  an  imperious  and  un 
scrupulous  oligarchy,  and,  when  the  people  fail  to  vote,  it 
fraudulently  counts  and  makes  such  returns  of  votes  as  it 
pleases. 

For  instance:  the  new  disfranchising  Constitution  of 
Alabama  received  a  total  of  108,613  votes ;  but  there  are 
232,294  white  voters,  and  181,471  colored  voters  in  that 
state  —  making  413,765  of  both  races.  So  that  only 
about  one-fourth  of  the  voters  gave  approval  to  the  new 
constitution. 

In  the  counting  of  these  votes,  numbering  108,613,  glaring 
frauds  were  committed.  In  Chambers  county  4,604  votes 
were  returned  for  the  Constitution ;  yet  the  total  white  vote 
of  the  county  is  only  3,457.  Dallas  county  returned  8,125 
votes  for  the  Constitution ;  yet  Dallas  county  has  but  2,525 
white  voters.  Hale  county  returned  4,696  votes  for  the 
Constitution  ;  yet  this  county  has  only  1,385  white  voters. 
Perry  county  returned  3,209  votes  for  the  Constitution  ;  yet 
this  county  has  only  1,559  white  voters.  Wilcox  county 
returned  4,652  votes  for  the  Constitution  ;  yet  this  county 
has  only  1,704  white  voters. 

This  is  the  way  officers  are  elected  and  laws  and  constitu 
tions  are  made  in  the  South.  Palpable  fraud  is  plainly 
written  on  the  face  of  these  returns. 

The  plan  is  to  use  repeaters,  or  to  keep  the  colored  voters 
from  the  ballot-box,  and  still  count  their  votes  to  swell  the 
returns.  County  after  county  in  Alabama  show  frauds  in 
the  election  returns. 

Mr.  Joseph  C.  Manning,  a  leading  white  citizen  of  Ala 
bama,  in  a  speech  before  the  Middlesex  Club  of  Boston, 
Massachusetts,  says:  "The  registered  vote  of  about  181,000 
voters  in  Alabama,  out  of  a  population  of  the  voting  age  of 
413,765,  is  notice  to  the  country  upon  the  part  of  the  gov 
erning  power  of  this  state  that  a  majority  of  the  voting 
population  is  without  a  republican  form  of  government,  for 

168 


FALSE    ALARM    OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

232,765  citizens  of  voting  age  in  Alabama  have,  with  but 
scant  exception,  been  illegally,  unjustly,  and  outrageously 
deprived  of  suffrage.  Of  the  number  of  registered  colored 
voters  there  are  not  3,000. 

"  Out  of  the  total  colored  male  population  of  over  21  years 
of  age  in  the  State  of  Alabama  there  are  73,533  literate  citi 
zens.  There  are  11,123  colored  citizens  who  own  farms  in 
Alabama,  2,871  part  owners,  116  owners  and  tenants,  72 
managers,  56,202  cash  tenants,  23,689  share  tenants.  The 
report  of  the  department  of  education  of  Alabama  states 
that  940  colored  male  teachers  drew  money  from  the  public 
funds  in  1902.  A  stringent  examination  as  to  character  and 
education  is  required  of  applicants  for  license  to  teach  in  the 
public  schools  of  Alabama.  There  are  fully  1,000  colored 
male  teachers  engaged  in  the  public  and  private  schools  of 
the  state.  In  Alabama  there  are  also  colored  merchants, 
colored  bankers,  colored  artisans,  colored  physicians,  colored 
lawyers,  colored  editors,  colored  ministers,  all  of  these  num 
bering  not  less  than  5,000  citizens.  Surely  the  5,000  citizens 
engaged  in  these  various  callings,  surely  the  1,000  colored 
male  teachers  and  the  many  thousand  colored  owners  of  their 
own  farm  homes  —  I  declare  that  surely  these  citizens  should 
come  up  to  the  requirements  of  good  citizenship  and  of 
character  at  least  under  which  test  no  white  citizen  whatever 
was  excluded  by  the  board  of  registrars  in  1902.  Had  the 
registration  been  impartial  no  negro  applying  for  a  certificate 
would  have  been  refused  registration,  for  certainly  no  white 
man  who  applied  was  denied  this  privilege.  Only  one  negro 
was  allowed  to  vote  in  my  county,  Tallapoosa,  with  a  colored 
population  of  2,055.  The  negro  principal  of  the  colored 
public  school  in  the  town  in  which  I  live  was  denied  registra 
tion.  He  was  repeatedly  told  that  the  registrars  were  not 
registering  negroes  at  that  day.  It  was  never  his  day.  This 
man  was  fully  qualified  to  register.  Negroes  of  property  and 
good  standing  were  humiliated  by  the  same  treatment 

169 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"Fellow-countrymen,  there  is  a  God  of  nations  and  of 
men ;  there  is  a  standard  of  honor  for  governments  and  indi 
viduals  ;  there  is  justice  and  there  is  injustice.  Not  in  all  the 
history  of  the  conduct  of  Christian  governments  and  acts  of 
civilized  men  can  there  be  found  a  parallel  to  the  depravity 
to  which  this  Alabama  autocracy,  the  progeny  of  the  former 
slave-holding  Democracy,  has  come." 

In  South  Carolina,  Mississippi,  North  Carolina,  Virginia, 
and  other  states  where  disfranchising  constitutions  and  laws 
have  been  put  in  force,  not  a  third  of  the  voters  of  the  states 
have  sanctioned  with  their  ballots  these  constitutions.  In 
some  cases  the  constitution  was  promulgated  without  being 
submitted  to  the  voters.  The  leaders  were  afraid  of  the 
condemnation  of  the  people.  Many  Southerners  are  opposed 
to  laws  which  can  only  be  made  and  sustained  through  fraud 
and  force.  Ex-Governor  MacCorkle  of  West  Virginia,  at 
the  Montgomery  conference,  said : 

"The  franchise  system,  as  it  is  at  present  constituted  in 
many  of  the  states  of  the  South,  is,  to  say  the  least,  practi 
cally  the  policy  of  repression.  Repression  has  been  tried  at 
every  stage  of  the  world's  history,  and  always  with  the  same 
unvarying  result,  utter  and  tremendous  failure.  It  leads 
nowhere.  It  raises  no  man.  It  demands  no  education.  It 
holds  ignorance  as  dense  as  ever.  It  drives  away  intelligence. 
It  breeds  discontent.  It  represses  any  rising  inspiration  of 
the  heart.  It  leaves  the  land  at  the  end  of  the  cycle  just  as 
it  found  it  at  the  beginning.  It  is  the  policy  of  deadly 
inaction  overridden  by  discontent." 

The  objective  of  such  laws  is  not  good  government,  but  to 
build  up  an  office-holding  oligarchy  by  keeping  the  races  at 
strife. 

Another  matter  of  importance  connected  with  this  sub 
ject  is  the  manner  in  which  the  colored  man  has  used 
his  ballot.  Has  that  ballot  been  cast  on  the  side  of  good 
government  and  for  the  national  weal  ?  Have  the  larger 

170 


FALSE    ALARM    OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

interests  of  the  whole  people  been  promoted  by  negro 
suffrage  ? 

In  the  Reconstruction  era,  and  in  the  years  immediately 
following,  the  negro's  vote  was  cast  strictly  in  accordance 
with  good  sense,  the  dictates  of  humanity,  and  the  highest 
welfare  of  the  republic.  Even  the  temporary  "  carpet 
bag"  rule  established  by  the  negro's  vote  was  demanded 
by  national  exigency,  and  was  preferable  to  the  infamous 
Black  Code,  which  nullified  the  Proclamation  of  Eman 
cipation  and  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  and  practically 
re-established  slavery.  There  was  no  middle  ground ;  it 
was  a  choice  between  the  Black  Code  and  all  it  meant, 
and  the  temporary  evils  in  such  free  government  as  could  be 
organized. 

And  the  negro  voted  for  free  government.  In  so  doing  he 
rendered  an  inestimable  service  to  the  nation.  Let  every 
serious  American  reflect  on  this,  —  that  it  was  the  negro 
vote  which  elected  General  Grant  as  President  of  the  United 
States  in  1868.  That  is  to  say,  if  the  negro  vote  had  been 
suppressed  in  1868  as  it  is  to-day  —  the  votes  of  the  solid 
South  added  to  the  eighty  scattering  votes  which  Mr. 
Seymour  received  in  the  North  would  have  elected  him 
President  over  General  Grant  the  hero  of  Appomattox.  So 
that  in  the  very  first  presidential  election  following  the  war,  it 
was  the  negro's  vote  which  saved  from  humiliating  defeat  the 
greatest  military  genius  of  the  age, —  the  man  above  all 
others  then  living  to  whom  the  nation  owes  its  life.  If  Mr. 
Seymour  had  been  elected  and  the  South  had  come  back  into 
the  Union,  and  by  its  solidity  had  gained  the  ascendency  in 
the  government  in-  1868,  the  gravity  of  the  cotaplications 
which  would  have  ensued  cannot  be  exaggerated. 

In  1876  the  negro  vote  again  decided  the  presidential 
election,  giving  the  electoral  vote  of  South  Carolina,  Florida, 
and  Louisiana  to  Mr.  Hayes,  whom  a  single  vote  would  have 
defeated. 

171 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  his  canvass  for  the  governorship  of  New 
York,  was  elected  by  about  17,000  majority  ;  and  no  one 
doubts  that  it  was  31,425  colored  voters  of  the  state  of  New 
York  who  sealed  his  election.  Governor  Odell  was  elected 
by  about  9,000  majority,  and  without  the  colored  vote  his 
canvass  would  have  been  hopeless. 

At  many  points  in  the  North  the  negro's  vote  has  effected 
the  election  of  members  of  Congress  and  has  been  decisive  in 
local  elections;  and  it  has  been  cast  on  the  side  of  good 
government. 

Probably  the  best  demonstration  of  the  safety  and  value 
of  the  negro  as  a  voter,  of  late  years,  is  revealed  in  the 
election  returns  for  the  year  1896.  An  examination  of  those 
returns  will  prove  beyond  a  doubt  that  the  negro  vote  de 
feated  Mr.  Bryan  and  elected  Mr.  McKinley  as  President  of 
the  United  States. 

There  are  the  facts  :  California  gave  Mr.  McKinley  eight 
electoral  votes  by  2,797  majority  ;  but  California  has  3,711 
colored  voters.  Delaware  gave  Mr.  McKinley  three  electoral 
votes  by  3,630  majority;  but  Delaware  has  8,374  colored 
voters.  Indiana  gave  Mr.  McKinley  fifteen  electoral  votes 
by  18,181  majority  ;  but  Indiana  has  18,186  colored  voters. 
Kentucky  gave  Mr.  McKinley  twelve  electoral  votes  by  281 
majority ;  but  Kentucky  has  74,728  colored  voters.  Mary 
land  gave  Mr.  McKinley  eight  electoral  votes  by  32,264 
majority;  but  Maryland  has  60,406  colored  voters.  West 
Virginia  gave  Mr.  McKinley  six  electoral  votes  by  11,487 
majority  ;  but  West  Virginia  has  14,726  colored  voters.  These 
six  states  gave  Mr.  McKinley  52  electoral  votes. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  colored  vote  being  the  decid 
ing  factor  in  each  of  these  states,  as  that  vote  outnumbered 
the  majority  in  each  state,  and  the  colored  vote  is  practically 
wholly  republican.  If  this  vote  were  suppressed  in  these 
states,  Mr.  McKinley's  majorities  would  be  wiped  out  in 
each  case.  If  these  52  votes  are  subtracted  from  the  271 

172 


FALSE    ALARM    OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

electoral  votes  which  Mr.  McKinley  received,  it  would  leave 
him  219.  If  these  52  votes  be  added  to  the  176  electoral 
votes  cast  for  Mr.  Bryan,  it  would  give  him  228  electoral  votes, 
a  majority  of  nine  over  Mr.  McKinley,  and  he  would  have 
been  made  president. 

The  evidence  seems  thus  conclusive  that,  in  the  most 
exciting  campaign  of  a  generation,  a  campaign  involving 
directly  the  vast  financial  interest  of  the  nation,  and  with 
it  every  business  enterprise  of  whatsoever  nature,  and  the 
direct  and  immediate  interest  and  welfare  of  every  man, 
woman,  and  child,  —  that  in  this  momentous  campaign  the 
negro  vote  was  the  saving  factor.  It  prevented  a  result 
which  would  have  ruinously  affected  every  class  of  population. 
The  negro  vote  saved  the  country  from  the  follies  and  crime 
of  free  silver,  free  trade,  and  free  riot. 

An  examination  of  the  election  returns  of  1880  in  Con 
necticut,  Colorado,  Indiana,  New  York,  Oregon,  and  Rhode 
Island  will  also  show  that  it  was  the  negro  vote  in  these 
states  which  elected  General  Garfield  to  the  presidency. 

The  returns  of  the  election  of  1888  also  disclose  the  fact 
that  the  negro  vote  in  Illinois,  Indiana,  New  York,  Ohio,  and 
Rhode  Island  determined  the  election  of  General  Benjamin 
Harrison  as  president. 

The  credit  is  given  to  the  negro  vote  because  it  is  the  only 
vote  that  is  contested,  and  gigantic  efforts  have  been  made 
and  are  being  made  to  destroy  it.  If  it  had  been  fully  sup 
pressed  throughout  the  country,  then,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
solid  South  would  have  defeated  Grant  in  1868,  Hayes  in 
1876,  Garfield  in  1880,  Harrison  in  1888,  and  McKinley 
in  1896.  Besides,  neither  the  McKinley  nor  the  Dingley 
tariff  measures  would  have  been  possible  if  the  negro  vote 
had  been  suppressed  throughout  the  country  as  it  is  in 
South  Carolina  and  Mississippi  to-day. 

It  has  so  happened  that  in  each  instance  the  majority  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  which  has  enacted  the  great 

173 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

national  policies  of  the  government  from  the  time  of  recon 
struction,  1868,  to  the  present  has  been  due  to  the  ballot  in 
the  hands  of  the  colored  man.  It  thus  becomes  evident  that  if 
by  defamation  and  persecution  of  the  colored  man,  his  ballot 
can  be  destroyed,  the  autocrats  of  the  solid  South  would 
have  a  clear  chance  to  gain  control  of  the  government,  shape 
its  destiny,  and  intrench  the  barbarous  traditions  of  slavery. 
The  majority  in  the  58th  Congress  which  passed  the  Panama 
Canal  bill  and  other  important  legislation  is  due  to  the  negro 
ballot. 

Senator  Blair  of  New  Hampshire,  in  a  recent  address  at 
Washington,  said :  "  The  colored  people  are  the  only  ones  in 
the  South  that  have  sense  enough  to  vote  the  Republican 
ticket,  and  disfranchisement  is  not  only  unwise,  and  unjust, 
but  a  crime." 

Here  is  the  kernel  of  a  great  truth.  The  white  people  of 
the  South  have  voted  persistently  and  solidly  against  every 
measure  of  great  national  benefit  for  forty  years.  The 
colored  people  have  voted  as  persistently  and  as  solidly, 
wherever  permitted  to  do  so,  in  favor  of  such  measures ;  so 
that  while  the  white  vote  of  the  South  has  been  inimical  to 
the  great  interests  of  the  country,  these  have  been  saved  by 
the  colored  vote. 

Thus  the  colored  vote  has  proved  a  veritable  godsend  to 
the  nation.  Without  this  vote  the  most  important  and 
fruitful  national  policies  would  have  been  impossible  of  in 
auguration.  The  negro  vote  is  a  failure  only  when  it  is  sup 
pressed  by  the  intimidation,  fraud,  and  shot-guns  of  the 
whites. 

The  Union  League  Club  of  the  city  of  New  York,  one  of 
the  most  influential  of  all  political  organizations  aside  from 
the  two  great  parties,  has  recently  taken  action  which  will 
have  important  bearings  on  the  whole  question.  This  club 
rendered  the  republic  invaluable  services  in  the  dark  days  of 
the  rebellion,  and  it  has  proved  a  tower  of  strength  in  the 

174 


FALSE    ALARM    OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

emergencies  of  subsequent  years.     At  a  recent  meeting,  it 
unanimously  adopted  the  following  resolutions  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Government  be  requested  to  instruct 
the  district  attorneys  in  the  various  states  where  an  illegal 
suppression  of  votes  is  alleged,  to  prosecute  every  case  where 
there  has  been  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  the  United  States 
in  respect  of  the  suffrage,  if  adequate  evidence  can  be 
obtained  to  justify  a  submission  of  such  case  to  the  grand 
jury. 

"Resolved,  First,  That  Congress  be  requested  and  re 
spectfully  urged  to  investigate  with  thoroughness  and  impar 
tiality  the  charges  of  a  suppression  of  votes  contrary  to  the 
Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  and  in  every  case  where  such  reduction 
is  accomplished  by  a  limitation  of  the  franchise  for  any 
reason,  and  that  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  votes  so  dis 
franchised,  the  representation  of  such  state  in  Congress  be 
reduced ;  and  also  to  see  that  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  be 
in  no  way  violated,  either  directly  or  by  subterfuge ;  and, 

"Second,  That  where  the  decisions  of  the  courts  or  the 
practices  at  elections  disclose  the  fact  that  the  present  statutes 
are  inadequate,  amendatory  acts  be  passed  remedying  the 
defects  disclosed." 

These  resolutions  were  based  on  a  report  of  a  committee 
which  had  thoroughly  investigated  every  phase  of  the  ques 
tion,  and  which  was  summarized  as  follows :  — 

"  The  demoralizing  effect  of  such  a  condition  as  this  every 
one  must  admit.  The  idea  that  the  people  of  this  country, 
great  and  small,  old  and  young,  of  every  nation,  kindred,  and 
tongue,  are  to  be  educated  upon  the  theory  that  a  continued 
and  wholesale  violation  of  the  fundamental  law  of  the  nation 
can  go  unpunished  must  produce  a  frightful  effect ;  and  there 
has  never  been  a  time  in  the  history  of  the  country,  when,  if 
it  be  true  that  these  violations  exist,  there  was  a  condition 
at  all  like  the  present. 

175 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"  If  the  facts  asserted  in  regard  to  this  matter  be  true, 
there  is  a  deliberate  nullification  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  —  a  thing  which  no  country  can  or  ought  to 
permit  while  it  cherishes  the  idea  that  it  is  governed  by  law. 
If  this  condition  exists,  we  are  far  from  our  great  ideal,  for 
we  are  a  government  of  some  of  the  people,  by  some  of  the 
people,  and  for  some  of  the  people."" 

Here  is  a  moderate,  conservative,  dignified  petition  to  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  to  investigate  certain  evils, 
wrongs,  and  crimes  against  a  whole  class  of  American  citizens  ; 
evils,  wrongs,  and  crimes  which  every  man  in  the  republic 
knows  to  exist,  and  which  are  repugnant  to  civilization,  ini 
mical  to  good  order,  and  in  open  violation  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States. 

The  Government  is  petitioned  to  use  its  lawful  authority 
to  ameliorate  these  conditions.  How  is  this  calm,  dispassion 
ate,  and  dignified  petition  received  ? 

The  "Jim  Crowites"  were  greatly  stirred  up.  Mr.  Robert 
C.  Ogden,  a  prominent  business  man  of  New  York,  prac 
tically  voicing  Southern  sentiment,  declared  that  the  influence 
of  the  petition  would  be  as  follows  :  — 

First.  To  injure  the  material,  political,  and  educational 
interest  of  the  negro  in  the  Southern  states. 

Second.  To  discourage  the  growth  of  academic  freedom 
in  the  South.  The  recent  action  of  the  board  of  trustees  of 
one  of  the  most  important  of  Southern  colleges  was  a  notable 
victory  for  intellectual  independence.  The  movement  toward 
academic  freedom  will  be  hindered  just  in  proportion  to 
Northern  use  of  the  negro  in  party  politics. 

Third.  A  prominent  representative  of  the  opposition  party 
is  seeking  the  Democratic  nomination  for  the  presidency 
upon  the  negro  issue.  If  the  proposed  action  is  taken  it 
will  contribute  powerfully  toward  securing  that  nomination. 

Fourth.  The  Northern  introduction  of  the  color  question 
into  Republican  politics  will  make  doubly  sure  the  continuity 

176 


FALSE    ALARM    OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

of  the  Democratic  solidity  of  the  South,  and  supply  the  very 
weapons  that  Democracy  needs  in  the  fight  against  Republi 
canism,  thus  adding  to  the  difficulty  of  electing  our  national 
candidate. 

Fifth.  It  will  retard  and  hinder  the  further  progress  of 
the  sober  public  opinion  of  the  best  South  in  the  effort  to 
secure  justice  for  the  negro. 

Mr.  Ogden  also  affirms  that  he  believes  in  the  Fourteenth 
and  Fifteenth  Amendments.  He  is  like  unto  the  old  deacon 
in  Maine,  who  "believed  in  prohibition,  but  was  agin  its 
enforcement.11 

Let  us  examine  in  detail  Mr.  Ogden's  specific  statements. 
His  first  reason  is  the  same  old  argument  so  vigorously  em 
ployed  by  the  Southern  leaders  —  that  if  the  nation  shall 
dare  to  interfere  with  them  in  their  work  of  subjugating  a 
people  they  will  take  reprisals  on  the  negro,  cut  down  his 
school  privileges,  deny  him  protection  of  the  law,  make  life 
hard  for  him,  and  otherwise  maltreat  him,  or  even  lynch  him. 
They  can  at  will  foment  race  slaughter,  like  that  at  Kishineff, 
and  dignify  such  acts  as  race  riots,  but  the  whole  world  will 
know  that  there  was  a  race  massacre. 

But  the  Government  should  not  be  moved  by  such  consider 
ation  ;  it  should  go  straight  ahead  and  do  what  is  right  and 
proper  in  the  premises.  When  these  leaders  stir  up  race  riots, 
the  Government  and  the  great  legions  of  law-abiding  people 
in  the  South  can  take  care  of  that  matter.  There  is  a  large 
and  increasing  element  among  the  Southern  people  who  be 
lieve  that  the  leaders  have  gone  entirely  too  far  and  have 
brought  nothing  but  disgrace  on  the  South. 

Mr.  Ogden^s  second  reason  is  an  insult  to  the  Southern 
people.  "  Academic  freedom  ?  "  Is  not  the  South  civilized  ? 
Is  it  not  a  Christian  people  ?  Do  they  need  "  academic 
freedom11  to  decide  whether  law  and  order  should  be  ob 
served  ;  whether  an  equal  citizen  should  be  outlawed  and 
forced  into  servitude,  and  the  laws  of  the  land  and  the  laws 
19  177 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

of  God  set  at  nought ;  whether  the  Constitutional  guaran 
ties  of  American  citizenship  and  manhood  are  myths ;  and 
whether  a  man  living  in  South  Carolina  should  be  three 
times  as  potential  in  Congress  and  in  the  electoral  college 
as  a  man  in  New  Hampshire  or  Colorado  ? 

Does  Mr.  Ogden  not  know  that  while  "  academic  freedom  " 
is  incubating  the  Southern  leaders  are  going  straight  ahead 
fastening  the  chains  of  serfdom  around  the  neck  of  a  whole 
race?  Will  he  kindly  inform  the  public  just  how  long  it 
will  be  necessary  to  suspend  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  in  order  to  achieve  this  "  academic  freedom  "  ? 

His  third  reason  is  childish.  He  is  afraid  that,  if  the 
proposed  action  is  taken,  the  South  will  "get  mad,"  and 
through  the  Democratic  party  nominate  a  man  like  Mr. 
Gorman  or  Mr.  Tillman  for  the  presidency.  Everybody 
knows  that  the  Democratic  party  has  done  rash  things,  but 
it  has  done  nothing  so  foolhardy  as  this.  And  if  it  should 
make  such  a  nomination,  the  day  of  election  would  disclose 
that  the  Democratic  party  in  the  North  was  not  only  "  out 
of  business,"  but  stiff  in  the  grasp  of  rigor  mortis.  Mr. 
Ogden  may  rest  contented.  His  fears  will  not  materialize. 
The  Democratic  party  will  not  commit  suicide. 

His  fourth  reason  would  seem  to  indicate,  if  we  did  not 
have  good  evidence  to  the  contrary,  that  he  had  been  asleep 
forty  years,  twice  as  long  as  good  old  Rip  Van  Winkle.  He 
says,  "The  Northern  introduction  of  the  color  question  into 
Republican  politics  will  make  doubly  sure  the  continuity  of 
the  Democratic  solidity  of  the  South." 

If  Mr.  Ogden  should  jog  his  memory  just  a  little,  it  would 
tell  him  that  the  color  question  was  in  Republican  politics  at 
the  birth  of  the  party,  and  it  has  been  very  much  alive  in 
Republican  politics  ever  since.  The  one  thing  that  has  dis 
tinguished  that  party  and  has  made  it  "  the  party  of  grand 
moral  ideas,"  that  has  caused  it  to  represent  before  the  world 
the  conscience  of  the  American  people,  and  brought  to  it  its 

178 


FALSE    ALARM    OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

greatest  victories,  is  the  color  question  in  its  politics.  Its 
highest  glory  and  most  magnificent  achievements  in  peace 
and  in  war  are  inseparably  associated  with  the  color  question 
in  its  politics. 

If,  because  the  Republican  party  upholds  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  and  demands  that  the  vital  issues  settled 
by  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  shall  stay  settled,  and  that  serf 
dom  shall  not  take  the  place  of  slavery,  and  that  all  Ameri 
can  citizens  shall  have  equal  rights  before  the  law,  without 
regard  to  race  or  color  —  if  these  things  shall  "  make  doubly 
sure  the  continuity  of  the  Democratic  solidity  of  the  South," 
then  may  the  good  Lord  have  mercy  on  the  South. 

Mr.  Ogden?s  fifth  reason  is  a  flagrant  impeachment  of  the 
"  best  South."  If  this  petition  "  will  retard  and  hinder  the 
further  progress  of  the  sober  public  opinion  of  the  best 
South,"  then  indeed  the  conditions  of  the  social  organism  in 
the  South  are  worse  than  the  average  American  would  like 
to  believe.  This  would  seem  to  prove  that  the  barbarism 
of  slavery  is  a  greater  handicap  on  the  whites  than  on  the 
colored  people. 

The  "  best  South "  ought  to  welcome  most  heartily  any 
lawful  steps  by  the  Government  which  will  promote  law  and 
order,  and  bring  about  an  honest  and  righteous  settlement  of 
the  race  question,  guaranteeing  the  equal  protection  of  the 
rights  and  liberty  of  all  classes  and  restoring  the  equality  of 
representation  among  the  states. 

Alexander  Hamilton,  the  trusted  supporter  of  George 
Washington,  and  exponent  of  the  Constitution,  said : 
"There  can  be  no  truer  principle  than  this,  that  every 
individual  of  the  community  has  an  equal  right  to  the  pro 
tection  of  Government.  Can  this  be  a  righteous  government 
if  partial  distinctions  are  maintained?" 

The  French  Constitution  of  1 793  holds  aloft  this  torch  for 
the  illumination  of  the  world :  "  Government  is  instituted 
to  insure  to  man  the  free  use  of  his  natural  and  inalienable 

179 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

rights.  These  rights  are  equality,  liberty,  security,  property. 
All  men  are  equal  by  nature  and  before  the  law.  Law  is  the 
same  for  all,  be  it  protective  or  penal.  Freedom  is  the  power 
by  which  men  can  do  what  does  not  interfere  with  the  rights 
of  another ;  its  basis  is  nature ;  its  standard  is  justice ;  its 
protection  is  law ;  its  moral  boundary  is  the  maxim,  '  Do  not 
unto  others  what  you  do  not  wish  they  should  do  unto 
you.' " 

Inequalities  before  the  law  lead  surely  to  abuses,  wrongs, 
oppression,  and  inhumanities.  Unsettled  questions  exist  re 
gardless  of  the  peace  of  a  nation.  There  can  be  no  peace 
until  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi  shall  be  as  just  in  gov 
ernment  as  Massachusetts  and  Minnesota ;  until  liberty  and 
law,  for  one  and  for  all,  shall  be  respected  by  all,  even  as 
it  is  written  in  the  Constitution  of  the  republic. 

The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  rendered  a 
decision  covering  the  vital  questions  of  the  Thirteenth,  Four 
teenth,  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  Let  that  decision  (see  Wallace's  Reports, 
16th  volume)  speak  for  itself. 

Associate-Justice  Miller,  speaking  for  the  court,  said: 
"  The  process  of  restoring  to  their  proper  relations  with  the 
Federal  Government  and  with  other  states  those  which  had 
sided  with  the  Rebellion,  undertaken  under  the  proclamation 
of  President  Johnson  in  1865,  and  before  the  assembling  of 
Congress,  developed  the  fact  that,  notwithstanding  the  formal 
recognition  by  those  states  of  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the 
condition  of  the  slave  race  would,  without  further  protection 
of  the  Federal  Government,  be  almost  as  bad  as  it  was  before. 
Among  the  first  acts  of  legislation  adopted  by  several  of  the 
states  in  the  legislative  bodies  which  claimed  to  be  in  their 
normal  relations  with  the  Federal  Government,  were  laws 
which  imposed  upon  the  colored  race  onerous  disabilities  and 
burdens,  and  curtailed  their  rights  in  the  pursuit  of  life, 
liberty,  and  property  to  such  an  extent  that  their  freedom 

180 


FALSE    ALARM    OF    NEGRO    DOMINATION 

was  of  little  value,  while  they  had  lost  the  protection  which 
they  had  received  from  their  former  owners  from  motives 
both  of  interest  and  humanity. 

"  They  were  in  some  states  forbidden  to  appear  in  the 
towns  in  any  other  character  than  menial  servants. 

"They  were  required  to  reside  on  and  cultivate  the 
soil,  without  the  right  to  own  it  or  purchase  it.  They 
were  excluded  from  any  occupation  or  gain,  and  were 
not  permitted  to  give  testimony  in  the  courts  in  any 
case  where  a  white  man  was  a  party.  It  was  said  that 
their  lives  were  at  the  mercy  of  bad  men,  either  because 
the  laws  for  their  protection  were  insufficient  or  were  not 
enforced. 

"These  circumstances,  whatever  of  falsehood  or  miscon 
ception  may  have  been  mingled  with  their  presentation, 
forced  upon  the  statesmen  who  had  conducted  the  Federal 
Government  in  safety  through  the  crisis  of  the  Rebellion,  and 
who  supposed  that  by  the  Thirteenth  Article  of  Amendment 
they  had  secured  the  results  of  their  labors,  the  conviction 
that  something  more  was  necessary  in  the  way  of  Constitu 
tional  protection  to  the  unfortunate  race  who  had  suffered  so 
much.  They  accordingly  passed  through  Congress  the  pro 
position  for  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  and  they  declined 
to  treat  as  restored  to  their  full  participation  in  the  govern 
ment  of  the  Union  the  states  which  had  been  in  insurrection 
until  they  ratified  that  article  by  a  formal  vote  of  their 
legislative  bodies. 

"  Before  we  proceed  to  examine  more  critically  the  pro 
visions  of  this  amendment,  on  which  the  plaintiffs  in  error 
rely,  let  us  complete  and  dismiss  the  history  of  the  recent 
amendments,  as  that  history  relates  to  the  general  purpose 
which  pervades  them  all. 

"  A  few  years'  experience  satisfied  the  thoughtful  men  who 
had  been  the  authors  of  the  other  two  amendments,  that,  not 
withstanding  the  restraints  of  these  articles  on  the  state,  and 

181 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

the  laws  passed  under  the  additional  powers  granted  to  Con 
gress,  these  were  inadequate  for  the  protection  of  life,  liberty, 
and  property,  without  which  freedom  to  the  negro  was  no  boon. 
They  were  in  all  those  states  denied  the  right  of  suffrage. 
The  laws  were  administered  by  the  white  man  alone.  It  was 
urged  that  a  race  of  men  distinctly  marked  as  was  the  negro, 
living  in  the  midst  of  another  and  dominant  race,  could  never 
be  fully  secured  in  their  person  and  their  right  without  the 
right  of  suffrage. 

"  Hence  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  which  declares  that 
6  the  right  of  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not 
be  denied  or  abridged  by  any  state  on  account  of  race,  color, 
or  previous  condition  of  servitude.1 

"  The  negro,  having  by  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  been 
declared  to  be  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  is  thus  made  a 
voter  in  every  state  of  the  Union. 

"  We  repeat,  then,  in  the  light  of  this  recapitulation  of 
events  almost  too  recent  to  be  called  history,  but  which  are 
familiar  to  us  all  on  the  most  casual  examination  of  the 
language  of  these  amendments,  no  one  can  fail  to  be  im 
pressed  with  the  one  pervading  purpose  found  in  them  all, 
lying  at  the  foundation  of  each,  and  without  which  none  of 
them  would  have  been  suggested :  WE  MEAN  THE  FREEDOM 

OF  THE  SLAVE  RACE,  THE  SECURITY  AND  FIRM  ESTABLISHMENT  OF 
THAT  FREEDOM,  AND  THE  PROTECTION  OF  THE  NEWLY  MADE 
FREEMAN  AND  CITIZEN  FROM  THE  OPPRESSION  OF  THOSE  WHO  HAD 
FORMERLY  EXERCISED  UNLIMITED  DOMINION  OVER  HIM. 

"  It  is  true  that  only  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  in  terms 
mentions  the  negro  by  speaking  of  his  color  and  his  slavery. 
But  it  is  just  as  true  that  each  of  the  other  articles  was 
addressed  to  the  grievances  of  that  race,  and  designed  to 
remedy  them,  as  was  the  Fifteenth. " 

This  clean-cut,  invincible  decision  of  the  highest  tribunal 
of  the  republic  destroys  every  contention  of  the  enemies  of 
liberty  and  makes  impregnable  the  position  of  its  friends. 

182 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE   NEGRO   IN   POLITICS 

THREE  pen  pictures  have  been  made  of  President 
Roosevelt  which,  taken  together,  show  us  the  man. 
One  is  drawn  by  the  Honorable  John  D.  Long,  a 
political  partisan  and  personal  friend,  formerly  Governor  of 
Massachusetts,  and  Secretary  of  the  Navy  during  the  Spanish- 
American  War.  Another  is  painted  by  the  New  York 
World,  a  political  opponent,  but  honestly  critical.  The 
third  is  drawn  by  a  non-partisan,  or  independent,  President 
Eliot  of  Harvard  University,  the  foremost  educator  in  the 
land,  the  Dean  of  American  scholars.  There  are  no  more 
discriminating  nor  more  trustworthy  sources  by  which  a  true 
estimate  of  a  man  may  be  formed. 

These  are  the  pictures  presented.  John  D.  Long,  depicts 
him  as  follows:  "Theodore  Roosevelt.  What  an  American 
career  !  What  a  fitting  for  his  present  great  place  !  Child 
of  the  great  metropolis,  graduate  of  our  own  Harvard,  a 
citizen  of  the  Western  plains,  touching  indeed  every  phase 
of  our  national  life,  a  student  of  our  history,  a  soldier  of  our 
army,  Governor  of  the  Empire  State,  honest,  earnest,  brave, 
high-minded,  direct,  forceful,  and  always,  let  us  say  here,  a 
true  Republican,  whoever  else  falls  off!  The  people  like  him. 
He  preaches  them  sermons  of  manliness  and  right  living, 
fidelity  to  duty,  and  they  believe  that  he  is  himself  even  a 
better  sermon  than  his  sermons.  There  is  no  great  question 
that  he  does  not  face,  whether  it  be  the  trusts,  or  the  tariff, 
or  our  duty  to  Cuba  and  the  Philippines,  or  the  purity  of 
the  civil  service,  or  the  development  of  our  trade,  or  the 
welfare  of  the  East,  or  West,  or  North,  or  South  !  He 
voices  even  more  than  the  spirit  of  a  party  —  he  voices  the 
spirit  of  the  people." 

183 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

The  New  York  World,  his  most  powerful  political  oppo 
nent,  paints  him  thus :  "  President  Roosevelt  does  not 
carry  his  ideas  of  democratic  equality  quite  so  far  as  Thomas 
Jefferson  did.  He  respects  all  the  conventions  of  official 
society  in  public,  but  in  his  private  and  personal  relations  he 
is  a  pretty  thorough-going  democrat.  He  often  goes  to 
shake  the  grimy  hand  of  an  engine-driver  who  has  carried 
him  safely  on  a  railway  journey.  He  is  '  hail-fellow  well 
met '  with  his  old  friends  among  the  cowboys  and  the  Rough- 
Riders.  And  just  now  he  has  in  Washington,  as  his  guest, 
his  old  Maine  woods  guide,  with  his  wife  and  some  friends, 
who  have  all  taken  lunch  with  the  President  and  Mrs. 
Roosevelt  in  the  White  House. 

"  It  is  safe  to  say  that  none  of  our  mushroom  aristocracy, 
and  very  few  even  of  the  older  growth,  would  be  thus  familar 
with  their  'plain'  friends — though  a  good  type  of  the 
independent  native  guide  of  the  Adirondacks  or  the  Maine 
woods  is  at  heart  as  thorough  a  gentleman,  in  the  real  mean 
ing  of  the  word,  and  is  certainly  much  better  company  than 
one  half  of  the  vapid  men-folk  who  help  to  make  up  what  is 
called  '  society.' 

"  Yet,  Mr.  Roosevelt  could  boast,  if  he  were  weak  enough, 
of  fine  old  '  Knickerbocker  blood,'  and,  though  not  rich  in 
the  modern  meaning  of  the  word,  he  has  always  lived  in  an 
atmosphere  of  \yealth,  refinement,  and  culture. 

"  That  he  still  believes,  in  respect  to  sterling  worth  un 
adorned  with  either  wrealth  or  book-learning  or  social  graces, 
that  'a  man  's  a  man  for  a'  that,'  and  that,  though  occupying 
the  highest  station  in  the  land,  he  has  the  courage  of  his 
likings  and  the  fortitude  of  his  friendships,  is  a  trait  of  his 
character  which  explains  something  of  that  popularity  which 
the  politicians  do  not  understand  and  which  even  his  mistakes 
do  not  seriously  impair.  A  very  few  Americans  may  '  dearly 
love  a  lord.'  The  great  mass  of  them  love  and  admire  a 
democrat  like  Lincoln,  Grant,  McKinley,  and  Roosevelt." 

184 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

And  President  Eliot  draws  this  portrait  of  him  :  "  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  President  of  the  United  States,  from  his  youth 
a  member  of  this  society  of  scholars,  now  in  his  prime  a 
true  type  of  the  sturdy  gentleman,  and  the  high-minded 
public  servant  in  a  democracy.  Harvard  delights  to  honor 
him." 

These  three  pictures,  taken  together,  faithfully  and  clearly 
represent  the  man. 

The  Right  Honorable  James  Bryce  of  England,  perhaps 
the  greatest  living  student  of  history  —  learned,  dispassion 
ate,  and  philosophical  —  says  of  President  Roosevelt:  "He  is 
among  the  greatest  presidents  America  has  had,  and  is  to  be 
mentioned  only  with  Washington  and  Lincoln." 

It  would  naturally  be  supposed  that  in  a  republic  of  free 
men  where  —  in  President  Roosevelt's  own  words  —  "  no 
man  is  above  the  law  and  no  man  below  it,"  the  whole  citi 
zenry  would  have  a  just  pride  in  such  a  chief-magistrate. 
But  the  fact  is  that  no  President  of  the  United  States,  with 
the  exception  of  Lincoln,  has  been  so  roundly  abused,  and  so 
heatedly  denounced,  as  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

It  has  happened  repeatedly  in  the  South  that  the  mere 
mention  of  his  name,  or  the  presentation  of  his  pictures  in 
theatres  and  public  halls  has  brought  forth  storms  of  hisses. 
He  has  even  been  burned  in  effigy.  Southerners  who  take 
part  in  such  performances  or  approve  or  condone  them,  or  fail 
to  protest  against  them,  injure  themselves,  by  forfeiting  the 
respect  of  law-abiding  people.  Lincoln  !  Roosevelt !  —  these 
are  the  two  men  seemingly  appointed  of  God  to  face  the 
hate  and  rancor  of  Southern  leadership.  Lincoln's  victory 
was  complete,  absolute.  Roosevelt's  triumph  has  come  in 
the  overwhelming  majority  by  which  he  has  been  elected  to 
succeed  himself  in  the  presidency.  God  and  the  right  were 
with  Lincoln ;  God  and  the  right  are  with  Roosevelt. 

There  are  also  noteworthy  coincidences  in  the  lives  of 
these  men. 

185 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Lincoln  was  born  in  the  South.  Roosevelt  is  of  Southern 
extraction  on  his  maternal  side.  But  in  this  the  South  finds 
no  appeasement. 

Again,  Lincoln  stood  between  the  colored  race  and  their 
continued  enslavement.  Roosevelt  stands  between  the  colored 
race  and  a  debasing  and  hopeless  serfdom  which  does  not  even 
afford  the  protection  of  slavery.  Both  stand  firmly  on  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  In 
the  lives  of  both,  the  laws  of  God  and  the  laws  of  the  re 
public  find  their  high  exemplification. 

What,  then,  is  the  head  of  the  offending  of  President 
Roosevelt,  that  he  should  be  the  object  of  such  abuse  and 
resentment  ? 

These  are  facts  :  There  are  ten  millions  of  colored  people  in 
the  United  States,  one-eighth  of  the  entire  population.  The 
vast  body  of  them  reside  in  the  South.  Though  equal  citizens 
under  the  law,  they  are  yet  in  an  abnormal  condition  —  subject 
to  great  wrongs,  hardships,  and  inhumanities,  not  of  their  own 
making.  Mr.  Roosevelt  wished  to  consult  with  some  well- 
known,  responsible  persons  with  reference  to  the  condition  of 
these  people  ;  for  he  is  the  President  of  the  South  as  well  as 
of  the  North,  the  President  of  the  colored  people  just  as  he 
is  of  the  white  people.  No  man  who  is  worthy  to  be  the 
President  of  the  United  States  would  fail  to  have  a  deep 
concern  for  the  welfare  of  ten  millions  of  loyal,  patriotic 
American  citizens,  especially  were  they  seen  to  be  under 
grievous  burdens,  serious  disadvantage,  and  debasing  in 
equalities.  He  therefore  invited  Principal  Booker  T.  Wash 
ington's  presence  at  the  White  House  for  consultation. 

Mr.  Washington  is  the  most  widely  known  educator  in  the 
colored  race  ;  a  man  of  sterling  character ;  conservative  almost 
to  a  fault,  many  think  to  the  injury  of  his  race ;  of  remarkable 
mental  gifts  ;  an  executive  of  great  ability  ;  a  genius  in  diplo 
macy.  No  white  man  in  the  South  surpasses  him  ;  few,  if 
any,  equal  him.  In  fact,  a  leading  Southern  white  educator 

186 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

has  declared  that  he  is  the  greatest  man  the  South  has  pro 
duced  since  the  masterful  Robert  E.  Lee. 

Mr.  Washington,  in  compliance  with  the  President's  invita 
tion,  travelled  hundreds  of  miles  to  meet  him  in  Washington 
City.  What  was  more  natural  or  becoming  than  that  the 
President  should  invite  him  to  dinner  ? 

This  was  President  Roosevelt^s  first  offending.  It  was  a 
simple  act  of  courtesy  as  a  gentleman;  it  was  an  act  which 
any  ruler  or  high  official  in  any  country  might  have  per 
formed  with  perfect  grace  and  propriety.  Yet  it  set  the 
South  ablaze  with  rage.  And  oh !  how  the  big  "  Jim 
Crowites,"  and  the  little  "Jim  Crowites,"  and  the  "  me  too  " 
"Jim  Crowites,"  and  the  wee  wee  "Jim  Crowites"  did  smite 
the  air  with  clenched  fists  and  denounce  the  President ! 

The  following  quotations  show  the  exact  nature  of  their 
utterances  :  — 

Senator  Carmack  of  Tennessee  fires  this  hot  shot  :  "  It  is 
an  out-and-out  damnable  outrage  !  " 

Senator  Tillman  of  South  Carolina,  true  to  his  nature, 
demands  blood  and  declares :  "  Now  that  Roosevelt  has 
eaten  with  that  nigger  Washington,  we  shall  have  to  kill 
a  thousand  niggers  to  get  them  back  to  their  places." 

The  Scimitar,  a  paper  published  at  Memphis,  Tennessee, 
makes  this  declaration :  "  The  most  damnable  outrage 
which  has  ever  been  perpetrated  by  any  citizen  of  the  United 
States  was  committed  yesterday  by  the  President,  when  he 
invited  a  nigger  to  dine  with  him  at  the  White  House." 

The  Commercial  Appeal,  Memphis,  Tennessee,  says  : 
"  The  example  of  president  or  potentate  cannot  change  our 
views.  If  some  coarse-fibred  men  cannot  understand  them 
it  is  not  the  concern  of  the  Southern  people." 

The  News,  Richmond,  Virginia,  declares  :  "  At  one  stroke 
and  by  one  act  he  has  destroyed  regard  for  him.  He  has  put 
himself  further  from  us  than  any  man  who  has  ever  been  in 
the  White  House." 

187 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Governor  Candler  of  Georgia,  with  vulgar  assumption, 
thus  explodes :  "  No  self-respecting  man  can  ally  himself 
with  the  President,  after  what  has  occurred.  .  .  .  And  no 
Southerner  can  respect  any  white  man  who  would  eat  with  a 
negro." 

The  Times-Democrat,  New  Orleans,  Louisiana,  makes  this 
plaintive  appeal  :  "  The  President  of  the  United  States  has 
entertained  a  negro  at  dinner  in  the  White  House.  White 
men  of  the  South,  how  do  you  like  it?  White  women  of 
the  South,  how  do  you  like  it  ?  " 

Governor  McSweeney  of  South  Carolina  declares :  "  No 
white  man  who  has  eaten  with  a  negro  can  be  respected ; 
it  is  simply  a  question  of  whether  those  who  are  invited 
to  dine  are  fit  to  marry  the  sisters  and  daughters  of  their 
hosts." 

But  Japanese,  Chinese,  and  Indians  have  eaten  at  the 
White  House  without  raising  the  thought  of  a  marriage.  Is 
it  in  vogue  among  any  order  of  society,  that  an  invitation 
to  dine  carries  with  it  the  expectation  or  the  obligation  of 
marrying  off  sisters  and  daughters  ? 

The  Enterprise,  Birmingham,  Alabama,  says :  "  The  in 
cident  of  counselling  with  a  negro  and  dining  him  establishes 
a  precedent  humiliating  to  the  South." 

His  reverence,  Bishop  Kelly  of  Savannah,  Georgia,  uses 
the  following  intemperate  language  :  "  The  recreant  son  of 
a  Southern  mother,  who  can  hobnob  with  the  Kaiser's  brother 
and  sit  cheek  by  jowl  with  an  Alabama  negro." 

And  Senator  Money  of  Mississippi,  with  a  hypocrisy  that 
is  at  once  amazing  and  amusing,  declares  :  "  Any  white  man 
who  should  sit  down  to  a  meal  with  a  negro  would  be  ever 
lastingly  disgraced  in  the  eyes  of  the  South." 

Bishop  Kelly  well  knows,  Senator  Money  well  knows,  and 
the  whole  country  well  knows  that  white  men  of  the  South 
have  come  into  closer  relations  with  negroes  and  committed 
far  grosser  sins  than  that  of  sitting  down  to  meat  with  a 

188 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

reputable  and  representative  colored  person ;  and  in  the  eyes 
of  their  fellows  they  suffered  no  disgrace.  So  that  in  this 
particular  they  are  certainly  guilty  of  the  charge  of  "  strain 
ing  at  a  gnat  and  swallowing  a  camel."11 

During  the  sessions  of  the  Congress,  especially,  and  also  at 
other  times,  the  President  is  accustomed  to  give  receptions  at 
which  the  Supreme  Court  justices,  the  foreign  ambassadors, 
senators,  and  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  offi 
cials  of  the  army  and  navy,  and  high  government  function 
aries  and  distinguished  individuals  may  be  bidden  to  come. 
There  are  series  of  such  receptions.  To  one  of  these  recep 
tions  the  President  invited  Mr.  Lyons,  the  Register  of  the 
Treasury  of  the  United  States,  who  happens  to  be  a  colored 
man.  The  reception  was  given  to  officers  of  his  class.  Would 
it  have  comported  with  the  dignity  and  honor  of  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States  to  invite  every  other  government 
official  of  this  particular  class  and  deliberately  ignore  the 
Register  of  the  United  States  simply  on  the  ground  of 
color  ? 

If  he  was  unworthy  to  be  invited  to  the  reception,  he  was 
not  worthy  to  be  the  Register  of  the  Treasury.  President 
Roosevelt  only  fulfilled  the  considerations  of  official  etiquette 
and  propriety  and  his  duty  as  the  President  of  all  the  people 
when  he  invited  Mr.  Lyons. 

This  simple,  gentlemanly  act  is  the  second  offending  of  the 
South  on  the  part  of  the  President.  But  the  haters  of  the 
negro  railed  at  the  President,  in  a  manner  shown  by  the  fol 
lowing  brief  quotations. 

Judge  William  E.  Eve,  Augusta,  Georgia,  said  :  "  The 
invitation  is  a  blow  aimed  not  only  at  the  South,  but  at  the 
whole  white  race,  and  should  be  resented,  and  the  President 
should  be  regarded  and  treated  on  the  same  plane  with 
negroes.11  He  seems  to  be  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  the 
whole  white  race  outside  of  the  South  most  heartily  com 
mends  and  applauds  the  President. 

189 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Governor  Terrell  of  Georgia  declared  that  he  looked  upon 
the  President  and  such  a  scandal  with  silent  contempt. 

Ex- Attorney- General  Boykin  Wright  said  :  u  It  has  done 
great  harm  and  is  the  greatest  mistake  ever  made  by  a 
president." 

Representative  Martin  Calvin  declared :  "  It  is  a  blow 
at  every  white  man  and  woman." 

Senator  J.  Rice  Smith  said  :  "  The  invitation  was  the 
most  disgusting  act  ever  heard  of  on  the  part  of  any  public 
man." 

The  News,  Richmond,  Virginia,  prints  the  following: 
"There  is  just  one  thing  for  the  Southern  people  to  do. 
They  can  and  should  hold  themselves  absolutely  aloof  from 
any  social  recognition  of  Mr.  Roosevelt.  He  should  be 
treated  by  Southern  people  precisely  as  if  he  were  a  negro. 

"  Our  representatives  in  Congress  should  confine  their 
dealings  with  the  President  to  the  strictest  formality.  If  he 
should  come  South,  he  should  be  left  to  associate  with  the 
negroes,  whom  he  has  chosen  to  regard  as  equals.  He  should 
be  treated  in  all  respects  by  Southern  people  precisely  as  if 
he  were  a  negro,  and  with  absolute  indication  that  he  is  not 
of  our  race  or  in  any  respect  socially  an  equal  with  us  or  a 
fit  associate  for  us  or  any  of  us." 

The  country  is  familiar  with  various  forms  of  the  boycott, 
but  with  nothing  like  this.  What  audacity  !  what  arrogance  ! 
A  social  boycott  is  declared  against  the  President  of  the 
United  States  by  the  lordly  aristocracy  of  the  South,  and  the 
President  is  to  be  "  treated  in  all  respects  by  Southern  people 
precisely  as  if  he  were  a  negro,"  and  with  direct  intimation 
that  "he  is  not  of  our  race,  or  in  any  respect  socially  an 
equal  with  us  or  a  fit  associate  for  us  or  any  of  us "  — 
because  he  invited  the  Register  of  the  Treasury,  who  happens 
to  be  a  colored  man,  to  an  official  function  ! 

The  third  offence  of  the  President  is  political  in  its  nature. 
The  colored  people  compose  about  one-third  of  the  total 

190 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

population  of  the  South.  In  some  of  the  states  they  are 
pre-eminently  the  tax-makers  ;  in  all,  their  varied  labors  and 
toils  are  valuable  contributions  to  the  public  weal ;  yet  they 
have  been  ruthlessly  brushed  aside  by  intimidations  and  by 
the  shot-gun  policy,  and  have  been  denied  representation 
in  the  government.  That  the  557,807  whites  of  South 
Carolina  should  by  brute  force  seize  the  government  of  that 
state  and  deny  all  representation  to  the  782,321  colored 
people  who  make  the  taxes  which  support  the  government ; 
or  that  the  641,200  whites  of  Mississippi  should  by  murderous 
methods  seize  that  state  and  refuse  all  representation  to  the 
907,630  colored  people  without  whose  fruitful  toil  the  state 
would  be  in  hopeless  decay  and  bankruptcy,  is  a  wrong  that 
cries  to  Heaven. 

The  colored  people  are  thus  denied  all  representation  in 
the  state  and  local  governments.  If,  now,  in  addition  to 
this,  they  should  be  denied  representation  in  the  Federal 
Government  the  door  of  hope  would  be  closed  hard  and  fast 
against  them.  The  influences  which  hold  them  to  the  politi 
cal  and  civil  life  of  the  nation  would  be  broken ;  ceasing  to 
be  citizens,  they  would  cease  to  be  treated  as  men.  They 
would  become  nondescripts,  without  a  definite  status.  They 
would  be  derelicts  on  the  political  sea,. and  the  nation  would 
have  a  far  greater  problem  than  ever  before. 

All  other  things  being  equal,  the  colored  man  has  iden 
tically  the  same  right  to  office  as  the  white  man.  The  strong 
arm  of  the  Federal  Government  cannot  be  used  to  destroy 
his  status  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  completing  the 
work  of  his  enemies  who  have  already  sought  to  eliminate 
him  as  a  citizen  of  the  state.  The  appointment  of  colored 
men  to  Federal  offices  is  not  only  just,  but  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  maintain  the  status  of  the  race  as  citizens  of  the 
United  States. 

President  Roosevelt  recognized  this  principle  by  appointing 
to  Federal  offices  properly  equipped  colored  men  as  a  just 

191 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

and  righteous  act,  where  their  numbers  and  importance  as 
toilers  warrant  it.  The  appointment  of  Dr.  William  D.  Crum 
as  Collector  of  the  port  of  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  was 
entirely  just  and  proper,  but  it  stirred  up  a  tempest  of  wrath 
among  the  Southern  leaders. 

If  the  Federal  Government  should  for  one  moment  concede 
that  a  citizen  shall  be  denied  the  right  to  hold  a  public  office 
on  the  ground  of  his  color  or  race,  it  would  by  such  conces 
sion  negative  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  and  thus 
become  a  violator  of  the  laws  it  has  sworn  to  uphold  and 
enforce,  and  play  directly  into  the  hands  of  the  lawless 
elements.  The  right  of  citizenship  and  the  ballot  carries 
with  it  the  right  to  hold  a  public  office.  Nothing  could  be 
more  absurd,  foolish,  and  even  suicidal  than  the  proposition 
which  is  sometimes  made  to  the  effect  that  the  colored  man 
should  waive  his  right  to  public  office  and  the  ballot  for 
about  fifty  years  with  the  hope  of  appeasing  the  implacable 
elements  of  the  South.  Such  a  waiver  would  be  tantamount 
to  alienation,  and  would  put  the  race  outside  the  pale  of 
citizenship.  What  guaranty  is  to  be  given,  and  who  is  to 
give  it,  and  how  is  it  to  be  made  secure,  that  political  suicide 
to-day  will  be  incarnated  into  the  blessings  of  liberty  fifty 
or  a  hundred  years  hence  ?  This,  indeed,  is  the  paradise  of 
a  fool.  Liberty  is  gained  by  eternal  vigilance,  and  not  by 
political  suicide.  The  upward  struggles  of  mankind  show 
that  the  liberty  and  political  and  civil  rights  of  a  people 
are  to  be  regarded  as  more  precious  than  meat  or  drink, 
or  houses  and  lands,  and  are  more  to  be  valued  than  even 
life  itself.  Liberty  and  their  manhood  rights  being  estab 
lished,  these  and  all  things  shall  be  gradually  added.  Profit 
ing  by  his  past  experience  the  colored  man  will  not  waive  a 
single  right  of  an  American  citizen  for  fifty  years,  nor  even 
for  fifty  seconds.  What  free  man  would  waive  his  liberty  and 
his  rights  at  the  behest  of  a  class  that  is  bent  on  forging 
the  chains  of  servitude  around  his  neck  ?  Connivance  with 

192 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

the  South  in  violating  the  Constitution  would  prove  embar 
rassing  to  the  government  and  perilous  to  the  social  organism. 
The  upheavals  which  are  shaking  the  foundations  of  Russia, 
and  the  cry  of  the  proletariat  for  liberty  cast  their  shadows 
and  point  their  lessons.  America !  the  greatest  and  freest 
country  in  the  world  will  eschew  the  civilization  that  de 
grades  manhood  and  will  hold  true  to  her  ideals  of  liberty 
and  the  equality  of  her  citizenship. 

The  fourth  cause  of  offence  by  the  President  was  also  of  a 
political  character.  The  post-office  at  Indianola,  Mississippi, 
a  small  town,  three-fourths  of  its  inhabitants  being  colored 
people,  had  been  filled  for  seven  or  eight  years  by  Mrs.  Cox, 
an  estimable  and  efficient  postmistress.  She  is  a  refined 
woman  of  unblemished  character,  and  thoroughly  competent 
to  discharge  the  duties  of  her  office.  She  had  given  entire 
satisfaction  in  the  performance  of  all  the  obligations  of  this 
little  office  for  over  seven  years,  and  there  was  no  complaint 
against  her.  But  she  is  colored,  and  the  men  who  had 
carried  through  the  wholesale  disfranchisement  of  the  colored 
race  and  had  decided  on  its  subjugation,  held  a  public  meet 
ing  and  demanded  her  resignation,  —  not  because  she  was 
incompetent,  but  on  the  ground  of  color  alone.  By  brutal 
and  lawless  intimidation  she  was  expelled  from  her  office  and 
exiled  from  the  town. 

The  President  declined  to  approve  this  flagrant  violation 
of  law  and  unreasonable  assault  on  an  officer  of  the  United 
States  Government,  or  to  accept  under  such  conditions  the 
resignation  of  the  exiled  postmistress,  and  requested  that 
the  law-abiding  element  give  her  protection  of  the  law. 
Less  than  this  he  could  not  have  done.  Nevertheless,  this 
simple  stand  for  law  and  order  caused  the  most  bitter  hostility 
throughout  the  South. 

Senator  Money  of  Mississippi  declared : "  No  colored  man, 
no  matter  what  his  qualifications  may  be,  should  hold  a 
Federal  office ; "  and  he  added  that  the  white  people  of  the 
13  193 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

South  would  have  all  colored  men  excluded  from  the  army 
and  navy. 

Mr.  W.  C.  Chevis,  editor  of  the  Daily  States,  New  Orleans, 
said :  "  The  Indianola  incident  and  the  Crum  appointment, 
determined  upon  after  mature  consideration  on  the  part  of 
the  President  and  his  cabinet,  cannot  be  interpreted  as  mean 
ing  anything  else  than  a  determination  to  cram  an  insult 
down  the  throats  of  the  white  men  of  the  South,  and  it  is 
accepted  in  this  spirit  here." 

Mr.  Charles  W.  Miller,  editor  of  the  Nashville  Democrat, 
said :  "  There  is  no  doubt  the  action  of  President  Roose 
velt  in  these  two  cases  has  severed  the  last  connecting  link  in 
the  chain  of  sympathy  which  bound  him  to  the  South." 

Mr.  J.  S.  McNeily,  editor  of  the  Vicksburg  Herald,  said  : 
"  If  there  were  a  poll  now,  it  would  be  found  that  the  Presi 
dent  has  completely  alienated  Southern  sympathy  by  the 
Crum  appointment  and  closing  the  Indianola  post-office." 

Mr.  J.  C.  Hempill,  editor  of  the  Charleston  News-Courier, 
declared  that  "  The  opening  of  the  c  door  of  hope '  to 
Crum,  President  Roosevelt's  selection  for  Collector  of  the 
Port  of  Charleston,  will  be  the  closing  of  the  '  door  of  hope  ' 
to  many  of  Crum's  race.  In  a  thousand  ways  and  in  no  way 
that  will  be  in  violation  of  law,  Crum's  race  will  be  the 
sufferer."  This  is  a  distinct  threat  that  the  whites  will  take 
reprisal  on  the  colored  people.  That  is,  if  they  are  not  per 
mitted  to  snuff  out  the  liberty  of  that  race,  destroy  their 
citizenship,  and  force  them  into  serfdom,  they  will  in  a  thou 
sand  ways  harass  and  torment  them  and  make  their  life 
unbearable. 

The  press  despatches  reported  that  "  Messages  are  hourly 
coming  in  from  all  parts  of  the  surrounding  country  offering 
assistance,  arms,  money,  and  men  if  they  are  needed." 

Mayor  J.  L.  Davis  of  Indianola  said :  "  Conditions  are 
such  that  I  would  not  advise  Mrs.  Cox  to  open  the  post- 
office." 

194 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

Major  M.  C.  House,  commanding  the  First  Squadron  of 
Cavalry  of  Arkansas,  sent  this  telegram  to  the  governor  of  the 
state  :  "  Subject  to  your  order,  I  tender  my  services  with  one 
hundred  and  fifty  cavalry  to  the  good  people  of  Indianola 
for  their  protection  against  negro  domination. "  Such  is  the 
Southern  chivalry  in  the  twentieth  century.  This  gallant, 
brave,  and  heroic  major  offers  to  march  his  squadron  of  cavalry, 
one  hundred  and  fifty  strong,  across  the  state  of  Arkansas  into 
the  state  of  Mississippi,  to  prevent  one  little,  lone,  helpless 
woman,  who  with  her  heart  in  her  mouth  had  taken  flight, 
and  whose  life  was  at  the  mercy  of  a  Mississippi  lynching 
mob,  from  forcing  negro  domination  on  Indianola,  and  maybe 
from  compelling  all  the  whites  of  the  state  to  pass  under  the 
yoke.  This  valiant  major  is  verily  a  subject  for  caricature. 

The  Atlanta  News  said :  "  The  News  has  repeatedly 
stated  its  reasons  for  objecting  to  the  appointment  of  negroes 
to  Federal  office ;  it  gives  the  negro  a  hope  that  he  shall  con 
tinue  as  a  political  factor." 

Senator  Tillman  said :  "  There  might  be  no  alternative 
for  the  Southern  people  but  to  kill  negroes  to  prevent  them 
from  holding  office.  There  are  still  ropes  and  guns  in  the 
South." 

The  Atlanta  Journal  declared  :  "  No  matter  how  worthy 
certain  members  of  the  African  race  may  be  in  character  and 
capacity,  yet  they  are  unacceptable  as  office-holders  to  the 
white  people  of  the  Southern  States."  The  press  despatches 
reported  "  great  excitement,"  "  high  feelings,"  "  threats  " 
against  "  all  negro  postal  clerks,  letter  carriers,  and  other 
officials,  in  different  parts  of  the  South."  A  New  Orleans 
newspaper  boldly  demanded  the  assassination  of  colored  men 
appointed  to  Federal  offices. 

Governor  James  K.  Vardaman  of  Mississippi  declared  that 
*'  Anything  that  causes  the  negro  to  aspire  above  the 
plow  handle,  the  cook  pot,  in  a  word  the  functions  of  a  ser 
vant,  will  be  the  worst  thing  on  earth  for  the  negro,"  But 

195 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

the  Boston  Herald  warns  the  Governor  that  "hitching  a 
negro  to  a  mule  will  not  settle  the  race  question." 

This  same  Governor  Vardaman  published  in  his  own 
newspaper  the  following  insult  to  President  Roosevelt : 
"  It  is  said  that  men  follow  the  bent  of  their  geniuses,  and 
that  prenatal  influences  are  often  potent  in  shaping  thoughts 
and  ideas  in  after  life.  Probably  old  lady  Roosevelt,  during 
the  period  of  gestation,  was  frightened  by  a  dog,  and  that 
fact  may  account  for  the  qualities  of  the  male  pup  that  are 
so  prominent  in  Teddy.  I  would  not  do  either  an  injustice, 
but  am  disposed  to  apologize  to  the  dog  for  mentioning  it." 

In  reference  to  Principal  Booker  T.  Washington,  Governor 
Vardaman  has  this  to  say  :  "  I  am  opposed  to  negro  voting ; 
it  matters  not  what  his  advertised  moral  and  mental  qualifi 
cations  may  be.  I  am  just  as  much  opposed  to  Booker  Wash 
ington  as  a  voter,  with  all  his  Anglo-Saxon  reinforcements,  as 
I  am  to  the  cocoanut-headed,  chocolate-colored,  typical  little 
coon,  Andy  Dotson,  who  blacks  my  shoes  every  morning. 
Neither  is  fit  to  perform  the  supreme  functions  of  citizenship." 
Governor  Vardaman  denounces  the  education  of  negroes  and 
publicly  advocates  murdering  and  lynching  ;  concerning  which 
the  Boston  Herald  says:  "It  is  a  safe  judgment  that  the 
white  men  of  Mississippi  who  want  liberty  to  murder  negroes 
with  impunity,  or  to  beat  them,  or  condemn  them  to  the 
slavery  called  peonage,  or  to  cheat  them  of  the  wages  of  their 
labor,  or  to  debauch  their  daughters  are,  as  a  rule,  supporters 
of  Vardaman." 

These  criticisms  and  denunciations  of  the  President,  al 
though  not  the  hundredth  part  of  those  which  have  appeared, 
are  sufficiently  indicative  of  the  dominant  Southern  senti 
ment.  Well  might  these  people  offer  the  prayer  — 

"  O  !  wad  some  power  the  giftie  gie  us, 
To  see  oursel's  as  ithers  see  us. " 

At  the  recent  Constitutional  Convention  of  South  Carolina, 
called  for  the  purpose  of  annulling  certain  provisions  of  the 

196 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

Constitution  of  the  United  States  by  cancelling  the  citizenship 
of  the  colored  race,  an  influential  politician  of  the  state  de 
livered  the  valedictory  address  after  the  convention  had 
completed  its  work,  saying :  "  We  can  all  hope  a  great  deal 
from  the  Constitution  we  have  adopted.  It  is  not  such  an 
instrument  as  we  would  have  made  if  we  had  been  a  free 
people.  We  are  not  a  free  people.  We  have  not  been  since 
the  war.  I  fear  it  will  be  some  time  before  we  can  call  our 
selves  free.  I  have  had  that  fact  very  painfully  impressed 
upon  me  for  several  years.  If  we  were  free,  instead  of  hav 
ing  negro  suffrage,  we  would  have  negro  slavery ;  instead  of 
having  the  United  States  Government,  we  would  have  the  Con 
federate  States  Government ;  instead  of  paying  $3,000,000 
pension  tribute,  we  would  be  receiving  it ;  instead  of  hav 
ing  many  things  that  we  have,  we  would  have  other  and 
better  things.  But  to  the  extent  that  we  are  permitted  to 
govern  ourselves  and  pay  pension  tribute  to  our  conquerors, 
we  have  framed  as  good  an  organic  law,  take  it  as  a 
whole,  as  the  wisdom  and  patriotism  of  the  state  could  have 
desired/'1 

These  utterances  were  received  with  hearty  and  prolonged 
applause  and  cheering. 

The  presiding  officer  of  the  Louisiana  Constitutional  Con 
vention,  which  was  called  for  the  same  purpose,  used  these 
words  in  his  closing  speech :  "  What  care  I  whether  it 
[the  Constitution]  be  more  or  less  ridiculous  or  not  ?  Does  n't 
it  meet  the  case  ?  Does  n't  it  let  the  white  man  vote,  and 
does  n't  it  stop  the  negro  from  voting  ?  —  and  isn't  that  what 
we  came  here  for  ?  " 

And  another  leading  Southerner  has  declared  with  great 
warmth  and  in  language  strenuously  emphatic,  if  not  ele 
gant  :  "  We  have  got  our  heel  on  the  neck  of  the  niggers  and 
we  can  hold  them  down ;  and  we  have  got  a  clutch  on  the 
craw  of  the  Yankees,  and  we  can  choke  down  their  throats 
our  sentiments  on  the  negro  question." 

197 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

In  the  midst  of  all  these  things  President  Roosevelt  stands 
calm,  firm,  serene.  He  could  borrow  the  language  of  the 
Apostle  Paul  and  say :  "  None  of  these  things  move  me." 
He  has  beaten  no  retreat,  evaded  no  responsibility,  made 
no  apologies,  but  has  met  the  issues  in  the  only  way  that  a 
man  worthy  to  be  the  President  of  the  United  States  could 
meet  them  and  has  defined  his  position  as  follows  :  "  If  I 
could  be  absolutely  assured  of  my  election  as  president  by 
turning  my  back  on  the  principles  of  human  liberty  as  enun 
ciated  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  I  would  be  incapable  of  doing  it 
and  unfit  for  president  if  I  could  be  capable  of  doing  it.  I  do 
not  expect  to  be  elected  president  by  those  who  would  close 
the  door  of  hope  against  the  Afro- American  as  a  citizen. 
If  I  am  elected  to  this  high  office  it  must  be  on  my  record  as 
the  executor  of  the  law  without  favors  or  discriminations. 

"The  great  majority  of  my  appointments  in  every  state 
have  been  of  white  men.  North  and  South  alike,  it  has  been 
my  sedulous  endeavor  to  appoint  only  men  of  high  character 
and  good  capacity,  whether  white  or  black.  But  it  has  been 
my  consistent  policy  in  every  state  where  the  numbers  war 
ranted  it  to  recognize  colored  men  of  good  repute  and  stand 
ing  in  making  appointments  to  office.  I  cannot  consent  to 
take  the  position  that  the  door  of  hope  —  the  door  of  oppor 
tunity  —  is  to  be  shut  upon  any  man,  no  matter  how  worthy, 
purely  upon  the  grounds  of  race  or  color.  .  .  .  Such  an 
attitude  would  be,  according  to  my  convictions,  funda 
mentally  wrong.  ...  It  seems  to  me  that  it  is  a  good 
thing  from  every  standpoint  to  let  the  colored  man  know 
that  if  he  shows  in  marked  degree  the  qualities  of  good 
citizenship  —  the  qualities  which  in  a  white  man  we  feel 
are  entitled  to  reward  —  then  he  will  not  be  cut  off  from  all 
hope  of  similar  reward." 

President  Roosevelt  further  says :  "  In  this  country  of 
all  others,  it  behooves  us  to  show  an  example  to  the  world, 
not  by  words  only,  but  by  deeds,  that  we  have  faith  in  the 

198 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

doctrine  that  each  man  should  be  treated  on  his  own  worth 
as  a  man,  without  regard  to  his  creed  or  his  race.1' 

The  line  of  cleavage  between  the  President  and  the  domi 
nant  Southern  sentiment  is  unmistakable.  Which  of  these 
sentiments  represents  American  civilization  ?  Which  repre 
sents  American  Christianity?  Which  represents  the  spirit 
of  humanity  and  the  ideals  of  republican  government?  Is 
there  the  slightest  doubt  that  if  the  American  people  were 
to  be  judged  by  the  dominant  Southern  sentiment,  they 
would  be  regarded  in  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world  as  a 
backward,  retrograde  people  ?  But  happily  there  is  a  wide 
gulf  between  "  Jim  Crowism  "  and  Americanism.  In  no  sense 
does  "  Jim  Crowism "  represent  American  public  opinion. 
It  does  not  represent  even  the  sober  second  thought  of  the 
South.  It  is  the  outgrowth  of  a  diseased  mind,  —  a  mind 
infected  by  the  virus  of  slavery ;  and  by  a  combination  of 
circumstances  it  has  wrought  much  havoc.  Although  the 
Southern  leaders  have  organized  secret,  oath-bound  societies 
sworn  to  destroy  the  negro  as  a  man,  as  a  citizen,  and  as  a 
member  of  the  social  organization,  yet,  it  is  as  certain  as  fate 
that  an  aroused  Southern  conscience,  and  an  enlightened 
moral  sense,  and  the  irresistible  public  opinion  of  this  re 
public  will  ultimately  triumph. 

In  this  conflict,  forced  on  the  President  by  the  reactionary 
and  retrograde  elements  in  the  South,  the  people  of  the 
nation  at  large  have  not  been  indifferent  spectators.  They 
have  given  him  emphatic  endorsement,  and  he  has  not  been 
without  whole-souled  supporters  among  the  more  thoughtful 
and  conservative  Southerners.  The  spirit  of  the  North,  as  in 
the  case  of  that  at  the  South,  is  best  represented  by  quoting 
the  actual  words  of  some  of  the  opinions  that  have  been 
vouchsafed. 

President  Eliot  of  Harvard  has  thus  expressed  himself: 
"  Harvard  dined  Booker  Washington  at  the  table  last  com 
mencement,  and  Harvard  conferred  an  honorary  degree  upon 

199 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

him.  This  ought  to  show  what  Harvard  thinks  about  the 
matter." 

President  Hadley  of  Yale,  President  Tucker  of  Dartmouth, 
President  Angell  of  the  University  of  Michigan,  and  other 
leading  educators  give  Mr.  Roosevelt  unqualified  endorse 
ment.  They  have  entertained  Mr.  Washington  and  sat  at 
vneat  with  colored  guests. 

Bishop  Potter  of  New  York  said :  "  He  is  fit  to  sit  at 
any  table  in  the  land.  Yes,  I  see  the  Bourbons  are  in  a  fit 
again  !  As  I  entertained  Mr.  Washington  at  my  table  last 
winter,  and  know  that  no  more  courteous  and  exact  man 
exists,  I  naturally  feel  that  there  is  no  reason  in  the  outcry."" 

The  Methodist  ministers  of  Philadelphia  and  vicinity,  at 
their  regular  meeting,  commend  the  "  courageous  and  broad- 
minded  act  of  our  President,  and  we  hail  it  with  joy  as  an 
auspicious  omen  that  the  weight  of  the  great  office  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States  is  to  be  cast  in  the  interest  of 
the  equal  rights  of  all  our  citizens  before  God  under  the  laws 
of  the  land."  Other  religious  bodies  in  Chicago  and  in  every 
part  of  the  North  strongly  uphold  the  President  ;  many 
churches,  separately,  also  endorsed  his  actions. 

Governor  Richard  Yates  of  Illinois,  son  of  the  great  war 

governor,    has   said :    "  When   we    were   in    the    crisis    of  a 

great  war  we  were  not  so  particular  about  social  equality, 

whatever  that  is.     We  needed  the  negro  and  he  helped  us, 

\   and  now  we  will  stand  by  him.     All  things  being  equal,  he 

*  has  exactly  the  same  rights  to  the  courtesies  of  the  White 

House  that  a  white  man  has." 

Some  additional  personal  opinions  are  equally  to  the 
point :  — 

"  It  is  time  for  Northern  justice  to  demand  that  the  negro 
citizen  be  accorded  the  same  honor  and  privileges  which  are 
accorded  to  the  white  citizen.  ...  I  marvel  at  the  patience 
of  the  negro.  .  .  .  He  is  demanding  his  rightful  citizenship 
and  must  have  it."  [Reverend  G.  S.  Rollins  of  Minneapolis.] 

200 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

"  Our  President,  following  in  the  wake  of  the  immortal 
Lincoln  and  the  crowned  McKinley,  has  contended  and  still 
contends  for  the  rights  of  the  colored  citizens.  This  has 
called  forth  a  storm  of  abuse  in  certain  quarters.  Two 
million  men  gave  themselves  to  help  the  negro  to  freedom, 
and  millions  are  ready  to  maintain  him  there."  [Reverend 
E.  J.  Smith  of  Cleveland,  Ohio.] 

"Every  good  citizen  of  the  country  admires  President 
Roosevelt,  and  every  good  citizen  admires  his  guest."  [Rev 
erend  George  A.  Gordon,  D.D.] 

"  I  have  invited  Booker  Washington  to  my  house.  He 
has  been  my  guest  at  my  table.  When  he  comes  to  Boston 
I  shall  be  glad  to  do  it  again."  [Major  Henry  L.  Higginson.] 

"  I  uphold  the  President  in  the  bold  stand  he  has  taken." 
[Professor  Charles  Eliot  Norton.] 

"  The  President  is  just  right."     [Moorfield  Storey.] 

"  I  think  that  President  Roosevelt  did  perfectly  right  in 
inviting  Booker  T.  Washington  to  dine  with  him.  The 
President  did  a  gracious  act  in  inviting  him  to  partake  of  his 
hospitality."  [Mrs.  Mary  A.  Livermore.] 

"  If  I  were  in  Roosevelt's  place,  I  would  do  the  same  thing 
myself."  [Professor  Nathaniel  S.  Shaler,  Dean  of  the  Scien 
tific  School  of  Harvard  University.] 

"I  heartily  approve  of  President  Roosevelt's  course." 
[Colonel  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson.] 

"The  President  did  just  right."  [Reverend  Paul  Revere 
Frothingham.] 

"  I  think  the  action  of  President  Roosevelt  in  entertaining 
Mr.  Booker  T.  Washington  at  the  Executive  Mansion  was 
eminently  wise,  timely,  and  proper."  [Henry  B.  Blackwell.] 

"  The  President  should  have  the  privilege  of  inviting  any 
citizen  of  the  United  States  to  his  dinner  table,  regardless  of 
race,  color,  or  creed."  [Major  Charles  G.  Davis.] 

"It  was  a  fine  object  lesson  and  most  encouraging.  It 
was  the  act  of  a  gentleman,  an  act  of  unconscious,  natural 

201 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

simplicity.  A  democracy  should  be  color  blind.""  [William 
Lloyd  Garrison.] 

"  It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  defend  the  conduct  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  He  is  well  able  to  do  that 
himself.  I  cannot  understand  why  men  should  criticise  the 
Christian  act  of  a  Christian  magistrate  in  breaking  bread  with 
one  of  the  foremost  figures  of  this  age,  simply  because  of  his 
color."  [Reverend  George  C.  Lorirner.] 

"Our  President  at  Washington  recently  invited  to  his 
table  a  good  man,  a  Christian  man,  a  scholar,  a  gentleman  ; 
and  any  man  who  is  privileged  to  have  Booker  Washington 
to  eat  with  him  at  his  table  should  feel  himself  honored." 
[Reverend  Charles  M.  Sheldon,  Topeka,  Kansas.] 

And  the  following  expressions  may  be  regarded  as  repre 
senting  the  press  of  the  North.  The  Boston  Herald  says : 
"  There  has  been  no  incident  in  politics  for  a  score  of  years 
that  has  so  united  the  men  who  originally  comprised  the 
Republican  party  in  opinion  with  regard  to  a  subject  as  the 
attack  upon  President  Roosevelt  for  calling  Booker  Washing 
ton  to  his  dining-table.  Incidents  which  induced  a  lower 
tone  as  regards  public  affairs  have  notoriously  parted  many 
men  of  character  and  ability  from  that  party  association  dur 
ing  that  time ;  but  the  raising  of  the  color  issue  in  this  way 
has  been  to  them  like  a  rallying  note  to  the  old  standard. 
.  .  .  Here  is  genuine  Republicanism  of  better  days.  They 
stand  by  the  President  in  being  true  to  it.  No  men  endorsed 
his  action  in  this  matter  more  promptly  and  unreservedly 
than  those  who  have  felt  compelled  to  separate  from  the 
Republican  organization  because  its  course  has  been  objec 
tionable  in  other  respects.  .  .  . 

"Booker  Washington  is  a  superior  man  without  regard 
to  his  color.  No  man  can  see  him  and  escape  the  feeling 
that  here  is  a  superior  example  of  human  nature  in  its  best 
development,  aside  from  accidental  conditions  as  to  race  or 
birth.  The  man  rises  above  these,  and  appeals  to  something 

202 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

they  cannot  seriously  affect.  He  illustrates  their  unimpor 
tance,  as  weighed  in  the  scale  of  intellect  and  manhood,  with 
an  effectiveness  which  makes  race  prejudice  appear  at  its 
worst  when  brought  into  operation  against  him.11 

The  New  York  World  says  :  "  The  President  has  right  and 
reason  on  his  side  in  insisting  upon  a  vote  by  the  Senate  upon 
the  nomination  of  Dr.  Crum,  the  colored  man  whose  nomina 
tion  as  Collector  of  Customs  at  Charleston  has  been  reported 
adversely  by  the  Committee  on  Commence.  His  position  is 
that  he  made  the  nomination  deliberately,  after  ascertaining 
the  fitness  of  Dr.  Crum  for  the  office,  and  that  as  no  objec 
tion  except  his  color  is  urged  against  the  nominee  he  desires 
to  have  a  direct  expression  of  the  judgment  of  the  Senate 
upon  the  question  at  issue  —  whether  men,  the  represent 
atives  of  8,000,000  citizens  equal  in  political  rights,  are  to  be 
debarred  from  office  at  the  South,  on  account  of  '  race,  color, 
or  previous  condition  of  servitude.'  We  certainly  hope  that 
the  President  will  adhere  to  this  attitude.  The  Republican 
senators  should  not  be  permitted  to  escape  a  record  upon 
this  question.  If  they  are  prepared  to  abandon  these  princi 
ples  and  professions  of  their  party  in  the  past,  they  ought  to 
have  the  courage  of  their  apostasy.  If  they  are  ready  to 
stand  with  the  President  in  refusing  to  consent  that  'the 
door  of  hope,  the  door  of  opportunity,'  is  to  be  shut  upon 
any  man,  no  matter  how  worthy,  purely  upon  the  grounds  of 
race  or  color,  they  ought  to  be  willing  and  even  anxious  to 
let  the  country  know  it. 

"The  World  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  it  thinks  the 
Southern  whites  are  making  a  serious  mistake  in  reviving  the 
race  issue  in  its  extremest  form  against  a  President  who  has 
made  fewer  appointments  of  colored  men  to  office  than  any  of 
his  predecessors." 

The  Evening  Sun  says :  "  The  Indianola  post-office  row 
seems  to  be  a  tempest  in  a  teapot.  Mississippi  will  hardly 
secede  or  the  South  fly  to  arms,  because  the  negro  post- 
203 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

mistress  has  retired  to  Alabama  and  the  office  is  temporarily 
closed.  That  excitable  New  Orleans  sheet  which  accuses  the 
President  of  deliberately  '  offending  and  insulting  the  white 
people  of  the  South '  does  not  understand  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
position,  and  it  seems  to  forget  that  the  postmistress  at 
Indianola  was  an  old  incumbent  who  had  shown  herself 
capable  and  trustworthy.  The  appointment  and  protection 
of  postmasters  is  a  Federal  matter  and  the  Government  must 
not  show  weakness  or  vacillation  in  asserting  its  authority." 

The  Press  says :  "  Those  who  applaud  the  President's 
militant  chivalry,  however,  must  gain  no  little  compensation 
from  the  savage  attitude  struck  by  such  organs  as  the  New 
Orleans  States,  which  says :  '  If  President  Roosevelt  has 
made  up  his  mind  to  outrage  and  insult  people  of  the  South 
by  appointing  and  keeping  in  office  obnoxious  negroes  [not 
incompetent  or  corrupt  negroes,  mark  you,  but  merely  ob 
noxious  negroes,  for  all  negroes  are  obnoxious  to  those  people 
of  the  South  for  whom  this  New  Orleans  paper  speaks], 
his  negro  appointees  will  be  killed,  just  as  the  negro 
appointees  of  other  Republican  Presidents  have  been  put  out 
of  the  way?  Yet  if  the  enemies  of  his  race  policy  will  range 
themselves  alongside  those  for  whom  the  New  Orleans  assassin 
is  spokesman  the  difficult  road  he  must  travel  will  be  made 
much  easier." 

The  Tribune  says :  "  The  President  has  chosen  exactly 
the  right  moment  to  send  to  the  Senate  his  long  contem 
plated  nomination  of  Dr.  Crum,  to  be  Collector  of  the  port 
of  Charleston.  The  persecution  of  the  capable  and  respect 
able  postmistress  of  Indianola,  Miss.,  solely  on  account  of 
color,  has  made  an  issue  to  be  faced.  The  office  of  Collector 
is  considered  too  sacred  to  be  profaned  by  an  occupant  with 
a  black  skin,  just  as  the  postoffice  at  Indianola  is  considered 
too  sacred  to  be  profaned  by  a  woman  with  black  skin,  though 
she  profaned  it  for  several  years  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
white  community,  until  some  of  the  loafers  thought  it  was 

204 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

time  to  assert  their  aristocratic  Caucasianism  and  teach 
4  niggers  '  their  place.  Under  such  circumstances  the  dignity 
of  government  and  respect  for  the  principles  of  its  Constitu 
tion  call  for  an  emphatic  stand,  not  for  negro  office-holding 
in  general,  but  for  the  Government's  right  to  appoint  negroes 
to  office  when  it  sees  fit.  The  agitation  against  Dr.  Crum 
has  practically  amounted  to  a  denial  of  that  right,  and  the 
President  correctly  judges  that  the  way  to  defend  the  right 
is  to  exercise  it." 

"  Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty."  The  republic 
has  not  been  vigilant  in  the  safeguarding  of  the  liberty  of 
its  citizens.  In  this  matter  it  has  fallen  into  apathy,  and  this 
apathy  was  the  opportunity  of  the  reactionists. 

In  1890  Mississippi  violated  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  defied  the  national  Government,  and  disre 
garded  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  by  the  wholesale  disfranchisement  of  the  colored  race. 
If  this  movement  had  been  promptly  met  by  the  reduction 
of  her  representatives  in  the  Congress  and  the  electoral 
college  to  the  basis  of  her  white  population  plus  the  actual 
number  of  registered  colored  voters,  no  Southern  state  would 
have  followed  her  example.  Nor  would  the  white  people  of 
Mississippi  have  consented  to  the  reduction  of  their  repre 
sentatives  in  the  Congress  and  the  electoral  college  simply 
for  the  glory  of  disfranchising  the  negroes. 

If  in  the  early  stages  the  republic  had  displayed  the  same 
horror  over  the  various  acts  of  violence  in  the  South  that 
they  did  show  over  the  Kishineff  shame  in  far-off  Russia,  mob 
rule  and  lynch  law  would  not  have  become  so  firmly  intrenched 
on  American  soil.  But  the  nation  has  remained  quiescent, 
notwithstanding  the  repeated  nullification  of  its  organic  laws, 
and  the  long  train  of  frightful  horrors  that  followed.  This 
quiescence  has  been  interpreted  by  the  reactionists  as  ac 
quiescence,  and  they  feel  emboldened  to  proceed  to  crush  and 
keep  in  subjugation  the  colored  race. 

205 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

In  dillydallying  with  the  reactionists,  the  nation  has  been 
playing  with  fire,  and  it  is  being  burnt.  These  reactionists 
are  so  well  organized  into  secret  clans  that  by  the  mere 
"  touch  of  the  button  "  they  can  bring  forth  complaints  and 
threats  at  any  time  from  every  Southern  centre  in  the  form 
of  interviews  on  the  necessity  of  "  teaching  the  negroes  their 
place."  It  is,  however,  all  for  effect. 

The  attempt  to  "  Jim-Crow  "  the  President  of  the  United 
States  and  coerce  the  Government  of  the  United  States  to  dis 
regard  its  own  citizens  on  the  ground  of  color  alone  and  deny 
them  all  share  in  the  government  is  preposterous.  But 
neither  Mr.  Roosevelt  nor  the  many  thousands  of  people  in  the 
North,  churchmen,  professional  men,  capitalists,  bankers,  men 
of  affairs,  educators,  sons  of  toil,  and  in  fact  representatives 
of  all  classes  who  have  broken  bread  at  a  feast  where  there  was 
a  colored  guest,  will  feel  alarmed  at  the  threats  of  violence,  or 
be  degraded  by  the  social  "  boycott "  declared  against  them 
by  the  Southern  aristocrats. 

The  race  problem  has  reached  an  acute  stage  in  its  de 
velopment.  The  serpent  of  slavery  was  coddled  and  nursed 
in  the  nations  bosom  and  warmed  into  life  ;  it  gained  in 
strength  and  power  until  it  all  but  stung  the  republic  to 
death.  If  the  more  subtle  and  treacherous  monster,  serfdom, 
shall  be  allowed  to  wind  itself  around  the  vitals  of  the  re 
public,  it  will  strangle  liberty  and  constitutional  government. 
Its  sting  may  be  even  more  destructive  than  that  of  the 
serpent  of  slavery. 

It  ought  not  to  be  admitted  even  for  a  moment  that  any 
class  of  citizens  is  above  the  law  or  any  class  is  below  the 
law.  Nor,  on  the  ground  of  color  alone,  shall  a  citizen  — 
otherwise  entirely  worthy  and  capable  —  be  denied  the  right 
to  participate  in  the  government  or  hold  an  office  under  it. 

It  is  true  that  any  interference  with  plans  of  the  reaction 
ists  to  subjugate  the  colored  race  may  produce  more  or  less 
trouble.  Expressions  of  defiance  are  to  be  expected.  Re- 

206 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

prisals  threatened  on  the  colored  people  may  be  carried  out 
to  some  extent.  But  all  that  they  can  do  is  inconsequential 
in  comparison  with  the  great  national  object  to  be  attained. 
To  use  the  language  of  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  "  We  mean  the  freedom  of  the  slave  race, 
the  security  and  Jirm  establishment  of  that  freedom,  and  the 
protection  of  the  newly  made  freeman  and  citizen  from,  the 
oppression  of  those  who  had  formerly  exercised  unlimited 
dominion  over  him"  The  path  of  duty  is  plain. 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  political  conditions  in  the 
South  which  may  be  included  under  the  significant  term 
"  Lily-whitism."  For  some  years  there  has  been  much 
speculation  about  the  organization  of  a  new  republican  party 
in  the  South.  The  old  organization  had  rendered  signal  and 
invaluable  services  to  the  republic  in  the  hour  of  its  greatest 
need.  To  it  belongs  the  credit  of  the  establishment  of  the 
first  free  governments  in  the  South.  It  also  gave  the  South 
its  first  system  of  free  public  schools.  Through  it  the  nation 
reconstructed  the  Southern  states  at  the  close  of  the  War  of 
the  Rebellion,  and  without  it  reconstruction  with  free  govern 
ment  would  have  been  impossible,  and  the  fruits  of  the  war 
could  not  have  been  preserved. 

But  its  constituency  was  largely  colored  men  ;  its  leaders 
were  conservative  Southerners  and  Northern  men  who  had 
settled  in  the  South.  Naturally  these  became  a  mark  for  the 
great  body  of  the  Southern  white  people,  because  they  stood 
athwart  the  purposes  of  the  latter  and  foiled  their  plans. 
Nevertheless,  these  Republicans  elected  presidential  electors, 
and  United  States  senators  and  representatives  in  Congress ; 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  in  recent  years  they  have  been 
opposed  by  the  shot-gun  policy. 

Gross  and  serious  charges  of  corruption  were  laid  against 
the  old  organization,  but  not  always  justly.  For  when  one 
considers  the  surrounding  circumstances,  the  inflamed  passions, 
and  chaotic  conditions  at  the  close  of  a  great  war,  the  cross 

207 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

purposes  of  the  contending  parties,  and  how  the  organization 
was  hedged  about  and  hampered  by  the  great  mass  of  the 
whites  —  it  will  be  seen  that  great  blunders  and  venality 
were  invited.  But  the  organization  was  republican  in  princi 
ples  ;  it  was  patriotic,  it  was  liberty-loving,  and  it  was  just 
to  colored  and  white  men  alike. 

The  "Lily-white"  Republican  party  which  assumes  in  some 
of  the  states  to  take  the  place  of  the  old  Republican  party  is 
composed  mainly  of  disappointed  Democrats,  men  whose  ambi 
tions  for  power  and  thirst  for  office  were  not  satisfied  in  their 
own  party.  After  bitterly  opposing  the  Republican  party  for 
years,  and  not  receiving  the  recognition  they  sought  in  the 
Democratic  organization,  they  deserted  to  the  Republican 
party  and  proceeded  at  once  by  the  same  oppressive  methods 
formerly  employed  to  harass  and  defeat  republicanism,  to 
seize  control  of  the  Republican  organization  and  oust  those 
who  had  been  loyal  and  true  to  its  standards  for  forty 
years. 

There  is  absolutely  nothing  to  choose  between  the  democ 
racy  of  Tillman  and  Vardaman  and  this  "  Lily-whitism." 
They  are  equally  brutal,  unrepublican,  unmoral.  The  chief 
aim  of  both  is  to  oppress  and  degrade  the  members  of  the 
colored  race,  destroy  their  manhood  and  citizenship,  and 
appropriate  the  offices. 

In  the  course  of  American  history  there  have  arisen  a 
number  of  political  parties,  but  each  party  has  hitherto 
stood  for  some  definite  principle,  even  though  it  may  have 
been  some  wild  fad  or  quack  nostrum,  to  be  enforced  as  the 
policy  of  the  government.  The  Federalists,  the  Democrats, 
the  Whigs,  the  Free-Soilers,  the  Republicans,  the  Green- 
backers,  the  Populists,  the  Prohibitionists  —  these  all  stand 
for  certain  governmental  policies. 

But  what  do  the  "  Lily-white "  Republicans  stand  for  ? 
Their  platform  might  be  expressed  in  a  single  sentence. 
Condensed  into  common  Southern  speech,  it  would  be: 

208 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

"  Down  imd  de  niggers ;  gin  us  de  offices ;  dot  ^s  what  we  stan 
fir." 

The  "  Lily-whites'"  have  demanded  the  control  of  the  Federal 
patronage  as  a  necessary  condition  for  voting  the  Republican 
ticket.  They  plaintively  appealed  to  McKinley  and  took 
the  public  into  their  confidence,  —  promising  that,  if  they 
only  had  control  of  the  Federal  offices  in  the  South,  they 
"  would  build  up  a  respectable  white  Republican  party." 

The  idea  that  these  politicians,  who  publicly  repudiate  the 
cardinal  doctrine  of  republicanism  —  the  equality  of  rights 
before  the  law  for  all  American  citizens  —  and  who  have 
assumed  the  name  Republican  for  purposes  of  revenue  only, 
will  "  build  up  a  respectable  white  Republican  party  "  through 
the  use  of  the  Federal  patronage,  is  absurdly  chimerical. 
This  "  Lily-white  "  party  is  unique  in  American  politics.  Its 
emblem  should  be  the  buzzard.  It  deserves  to  be  known  as 
the  "  buzzard  "  party.  It  scents  the  carrion  of  office  from 
afar,  and  where  the  carrion  is,  there  it  will  be  found.  Lily- 
whitism  is  the  antithesis  of  republicanism.  If  the  Republi 
can  leaders  coquette  with  this  party  they  will  cause  the 
disappearance  of  republican  principles  in  the  South.  The 
few  ineffective  votes  gained  in  the  South  —  bought  and  in 
fluenced  through  the  bribes  of  Federal  patronage  —  will  be 
more  than  offset  by  the  manifold  loss  of  effective  votes  in 
the  North. 

The  republican  conscience  of  the  North  will  not  uphold 
"Lilv-whitism."  The  logical  and  immediate  effect  of  recog 
nizing  or  temporizing  with  this  political  movement  will  be  to 
encourage  and  strengthen  "Jim  Crowism,"  and  thus  further 
complicate  an  already  embarrassing  and  hazardous  situation. 

It  will  always  be  true  that  honorable  Southerners,  or  those 
without  sinister  motives,  who  may  wish  to  vote  the  Republican 
ticket  will  do  so  independently  of  the  bribes  of  Federal 
patronage.  Such  patronage  has  never  built  up  a  respectable 
party.  The  Republican  party  itself  came  into  power  without 
l*  209 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

the  possession  of  a  single  Federal  office.  And  it  has  been 
twice  "  put  out  of  action  "  in  spite  of  its  possession  of  the 
Federal  offices. 

Wherever  the  "  Lily- whites,"  by  their  high-handed  and 
nnrepublican  methods,  have  conquered  Republican  organiza 
tions  in  the  South,  they  have  seriously  injured  the  Repub 
lican  party.  Their  touch  is  death  to  republicanism.  They 
have  rejected  colored  delegates  regularly  elected  by  the  pre 
cincts  and  have  prohibited  them  from  participating  in  district 
and  state  conventions,  solely  on  the  ground  of  color,  and 
have  expelled  them  from  the  floor  of  the  convention.  They 
have  in  some  cases  obtained  offices  and  used  the  power  thereof 
to  oppress  and  degrade  the  colored  voter,  and  it  has  been 
necessary  for  the  President  repeatedly  to  intervene  for  the 
protection  of  the  colored  citizen  by  dismissing  them  from  the 
public  service. 

In  the  removal  of  a  "  Lily-white  "  from  office  in  Alabama, 
Postmaster-general  Payne,  speaking  for  the  President,  said  : 
"  Neither  the  administration  nor  the  Republican  party  of  the 
North  will  stand  for  the  exclusion  of  any  section  of  our 
people  by  reason  of  their  race  or  color,  .  .  .  and  the  action 
of  the  [Lily-white]  Republican  state  convention  referred  to, 
in  arbitrarily  excluding  them,  is  not  approved." 

These  men  have  no  respect  for  the  principles  of  the  Re 
publican  party.  They  despise  its  history  and  cherish  open 
contempt  for  its  great  leaders  and  its  legions  of  adherents. 
This  was  shown  by  the  conduct  and  words  of  Mr.  W.  S. 
Robinson,  the  u  Lily-white "  member  of  the  national  com 
mittee  from  North  Carolina,  at  the  dinner  given  by  Senator 
Hanna  to  the  national  Republican  committee.  This  com 
mittee  was  convened  at  Washington  for  the  purpose  of  ar 
ranging  for  the  national  Republican  convention  to  nominate 
a  president  of  the  United  States.  Senator  Hanna,  the 
national  chairman,  gave  a  dinner  complimentary  to  the 
committee,  at  the  Arlington  Hotel.  One  of  the  members  of 

210 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

the  committee,  Mr.  Judson  Lyons,  is  a  colored  man.  And  it 
may  be  stated  that  Mr.  Lyons  holds  the  high  and  important 
position  of  Register  of  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States. 

Senator  Hanna,  with  his  guests  —  some  fifty-odd  members 
of  the  national  Republican  committee — had  seated  themselves 
around  the  banquet  board.  At  this  moment  Mr.  W.  S. 
Robinson,  the  "  Lily-white  "  member  from  North  Carolina,  ar 
rived.  And  on  entering  the  room  and  seeing  Mr.  Lyons, 
the  colored  member  from  Georgia,  at  one  of  the  tables,  he 
"strode  out  in  high  dudgeon,"  and  with  great  show  of  indig 
nation  exclaimed,  "  I  came  here  a  gentleman,  and  I  shall  cer- 
tainlv  go  back  one."  He  also  said  that  no  white  man  who 
was  a  gentleman  could  eat  in  the  same  dining-room  where 
there  was  a  negro  seated  at  one  of  the  tables. 

This,  surely,  is  a  singular  way  for  a  gentleman  to  show  his 
high  breeding.  Mr.  Robinson  could  have  absented  himself 
from  Senator  Hannahs  banquet  or  declined  the  invitation, 
and  that  probably  would  have  been  the  end  of  the  matter. 
But  the  manner  in  which  he  left  the  banquet-room,  and  the 
excuse  he  gave  to  the  press  reporter  implied  that  Senator 
Hanna  and  his  assembled  guests  were  not  gentlemen  since 
they  could  sit  at  meat  with  Register  Lyons.  His  language 
was,  therefore,  an  insult  to  his  host,  an  insult  to  every  guest 
at  that  banquet  board,  an  insult  to  the  national  Republican 
party  in  whose  name  they  had  assembled.  Who  will  say 
that  such  a  man  is  a  fit  representative  of  the  Republican 
party  in  a  state  where  there  are  624,469  colored  citizens  ? 

The  more  serious  aspect  of  the  case  is  that  Mr.  Robinson 
has  been  indorsed  by  the  "  Lily- whites  "  of  the  South.  These 
men  by  treachery  and  force  have  seized  some  of  the  local 
Republican  organizations  and  shorn  them  of  the  Republican 
principles  and  are  making  an  audacious  attempt  to  stampede 
the  national  organization,  or  drag  it  from  its  moorings.  This 
incident  is  not  a  matter  to  be  lightly  regarded.  It  shows  the 
temper,  spirit,  and  purpose  of  "  Lily-whitism  "  —  to  rule  or 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

ruin.  The  national  organization  had  to  combat  this  same  spirit 
in  the  South  in  the  great  crises  of  the  Reconstruction  period. 

Men  of  this  character  are  not  Republicans,  but  interlopers, 
"wolves  in  sheep's  clothing,"  who  would  rend  and  destroy 
the  organization  and  trample  its  principles  under  their 
feet.  They  are  a  reproach  to  the  party,  an  ulcer  on  the 
organization. 

Under  such  circumstances  it  is  clearly  the  duty  of  the 
national  Republican  organization,  or  the  national  commit 
tee,  to  carry  out  such  plans  as  may  seem  wise  in  reorganiz 
ing  the  party  along  republican  lines  in  the  states  where  the 
organization  has  been  conquered  by  unrepublican  methods, 
and  where  the  men  who  have  loyally  stood  by  the  organiza 
tion  for  forty  years,  and  suffered  untold  hardships  and  risked 
their  lives  for  its  principles,  have  been  unjustly  thrown  out 
by  the  interlopers,  in  order  that  the  latter  might  place  a  lien 
on  the  Federal  offices. 

Mr.  Crumpacker  in  a  recent  speech  in  Congress  utters  a 
warning  to  which  it  would  be  well  for  the  nation  to  give  ear : 
"  I  have  said  enough,  Mr.  Speaker,  to  warn  the  House  and 
the  country  that  the  situation  is  rapidly  crystallizing  into  a 
policy  of  complete  subjugation  of  the  colored  race  in  all  the 
fields  of  activity,  .  .  .  and  slavery  is  its  inevitable  result.  .  .  . 
I  have  been  admonished  that  if  the  race  question  were  let 
alone  and  the  Constitution  were  ignored  the  '  solid  South ' 
would  go  to  pieces  politically  and  a  white  Republican  party 
would  be  built  upon  the  ruins.  A  white  Republican  party  in 
the  South  is  only  possible  by  universal  assent  to  the  practical 
enslavement  of  the  negro.  If  that  imaginary  party  should 
at  any  time  show  any  friendship  for  the  colored  man  or  any 
sympathy  with  his  struggles  to  better  his  condition,  it  would 
at  once  fall  under  the  ban  of  the  hereditary  prejudices,  and 
social  and  business  proscription  would  be  its  fate. 

"  If  the  country  will  consent  that  the  8,000,000  colored 
citizens  shall  be  deprived  of  their  rights,  that  lynching  may  go 


THE    NEGRO    IN    POLITICS 

on  without  let  or  hindrance  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  process 
of  subjugation,  there  may  be  a  white  Republican  party  in  the 
South,  but  not  otherwise. 

"  But  can  we  afford  the  price  ?  A  white  Republican  party  ? 
Shades  of  Lincoln  and  Seward,  of  Sumner  and  Chase!  A 
white  Republican  party  only  a  little  over  a  generation  after 
the  death  of  the  emancipator !  It  is  an  impossibility.  The 
Republican  party  is  the  party  of  human  liberty  and  equal 
rights.  It  is  based  upon  manhood,  and  not  upon  race  or 
color.  The  old  Whig  party  forfeited  its  conscience  and  lost 
its  character  temporizing  with  wrong,  injustice,  and  human 
oppression  over  half  a  century  ago.  The  Republican  party 
will  never  make  that  mistake.  Let  the  South  continue  to  be 
'  solid '  if  it  will,  let  the  Republican  party  go  down  in  defeat 
if  it  must,  but  it  will  never  surrender  the  great  principles  of 
human  liberty  of  which  it  was  the  born  champion." 

The  national  organization,  in  dealing  with  its  loyal  sup 
porters  in  the  South,  cannot  respect  the  wholesale  disfranchise- 
ment  which  contravenes  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
It  must  regard  the  fundamental  condition  of  the  Reconstruc 
tion.  It  must  stand  for  equal  laws  for  all.  Therefore  it 
must  take  the  only  just  ground,  that  any  citizen  who  has 
voted  the  Republican  ticket  at  any  previous  congressional 
or  presidential  election,  and  wishes  to  continue  as  a  member 
of  the  Republican  party  of  his  state,  shall  have  equal  rights  to 
participate  in  the  councils  and  elections  of  the  party  without 
regard  to  unlawful  disfranchisements.  If  the  "  Lily- whites  " 
shall  wish  in  this  event  to  return  to  their  democratic  or 
populistic  allegiance,  then  let  them  do  that. 

The  Charleston  News  and  Courier,  a  leading  Southern 
journal,  very  pointedly  says  :  "  There  is  no  question  about 
it  that  the  men  who  have  gone  into  the  Republican  party 
in  the  South  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  have  gone  in  for  the 
money  they  could  make  out  of  it,  for  the  prominence  it 
would  give  them,  for  the  influence  they  would  be  able  to 

213 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

exert  toward  the  accomplishment  of  their  mean,  selfish  pur 
poses.  There  ought  to  be  no  room  in  the  Democratic  party 
for  the  returning  '  Lily-whites.' " 

And  these  discredited  creatures  boast  about  organizing  a 
respectable  white  Republican  party  !  Republicanism  is  based 
on  the  eternal  certitudes  of  liberty,  justice,  equal  rights,  and 
honest  and  orderly  government.  And  in  the  onward  sweep 
of  civilization  these  principles  are  sure  to  triumph.  It  will 
assuredly  prove  true  that  no  party,  Democratic,  Republican 
or  other,  can  gain  and  hold  the  favor  of  the  great  masses  of 
the  American  people  which  does  not  raise  aloft  and  defend 
these  principles. 

In  the  South  the  Republican  party  can  afford  to  bide  its 
time.  It  can  afford  to  be  overborne  by  fraud  and  violence. 
It  can  stand  and  suffer  persecution  for  its  cause's  sake.  But 
it  cannot  afford  to  be  un-American,  un -republican,  oppressive. 
As  "  Lily-whitism  "  and  "Jim  Crowism,"  twin  evils  of  bar 
barism,  shall  wane  in  power,  as  they  must,  decreasing  race 
passions  and  strife,  and  as  the  South  shall  take  the  second 
sober  thought,  many  white  people  in  the  South  will  be  at 
tracted  to  the  Republican  party,  not  for  the  sake  of  the 
offices,  but  because  they  accept  the  righteousness  of  its  car 
dinal  principles  and  favor  the  great  national  policies  of 
government  which  it  would  enforce. 


CHAPTER  VII 

\ 

THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  LAW 

THE  colored  race,  like  the  white  race,  like  every  race, 
has  its  criminals.  It  has  many  of  them.  Some  people 
think  and  say  that  it  has  more  than  its  share  in  pro 
portion  to  the  other  part  of  the  population.  This  may  be 
true,  or  it  may  not  be  true.  To  discuss  a  matter  of  this 
kind  intelligently  and  fairly,  attention  must  be  given  to  the 
conditions  and  environments  of  the  class  from  which  the 
criminals  come. 

It  is  not  to  be  disputed  that  while  the  web  of  the  law 
catches  here  and  there  a  member  from  the  higher  or  more 
prosperous  element  of  the  social  body,  it  most  frequently 
drags  in  criminals  from  the  less  fortunate,  poorer,  laboring 
classes.  The  record  of  the  police  and  other  courts  day  by 
day  would  show  scores  of  the  latter  to  one  of  the  former. 

Among  the  Southern  whites,  the  preponderating  element 
consists  of  the  higher  or  more  prosperous  class.  A  man  who 
can  command  good  wages  and  steady  employment,  even 
though  he  is  obliged  to  work  for  a  living,  should  be  properly 
classed  among  the  higher  or  more  prosperous  element  of  the 
community.  The  large  majority  of  the  whites  belong  to  this 
class. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  man  who  must  take  the  most 
menial  places  and  receives  small  pay,  at  times  hardly  more 
than  enough  to  keep  soul  and  body  together,  or  must  depend 
on  odd  jobs  and  finds  them  unremunerative  and  scarce  as  a 
rule,  belongs  to  the  less  fortunate,  poorer  or  common  laboring 
class.  The  great  majority  of  the  colored  people  belong  to 
this  class. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  many  thousands  of  colored  people 
are  engaged  in  business  pursuits,  and  to  such  an  extent  that 
there  is  not  a  field  of  business  in  which  they  are  not  engaged  ; 

215 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

and  many  have  achieved  remarkable  success,  some  having  even 
gained  a  competency.  Scores  of  thousands  are  the  owners  of 
their  own  homes  and  farms  and  may  be  justly  rated  as 
prosperous. 

Many  occupy  commanding  places  in  the  professions,  law, 
medicine,  theology,  dentistry,  and  pharmacy.  Some  thirty 
thousands  of  them  are  teachers  in  the  public  schools  and  in 
stitutions  of  higher  learning.  Thousands  are  also  in  the 
employment  of  the  National  Government,  from  the  Register 
of  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States  and  other  important 
Federal  offices  down  through  the  various  grades  of  clerkships 
to  the  scrub-women.  Some  thousands  are  in  the  army  and 
navy. 

Indeed  there  is  not  a  walk  or  calling  in  American  life  in 
which  the  negro  has  not  forged  ahead  and  won  success.  But 
nevertheless,  it  would  be  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  in  the 
brief  forty  years  of  struggle  in  the  rise  from  abject,  demor 
alizing  slavery, —  in  the  face  of  tremendous  odds  and  diffi 
culties, —  the  proportion  of  negroes  commanding  first-rate 
positions  and  receiving  remunerative  wages  would  be  as 
great  as  among  the  whites  with  their  long  line  of  free 
ancestry. 

The  general  progress  of  the  American  negro  has  not  only 
been  commensurate  with  his  opportunities,  but  to  many  it 
has  been  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  age.  Nevertheless  it 
must  be  admitted  that  the  great  body  of  the  colored  people 
belong  to  the  less  fortunate,  the  poorer  or  ordinary  laboring 
class.  Their  very  condition  —  the  entailment  of  slavery  — 
bears  heavily  upon  them  ;  their  lack  of  means  and  the  denial 
of  remunerative  employment  and  a  fair  chance  for  advance 
ment  handicaps  them  enormously  in  the  race  of  life ;  and 
their  environments  are  a  serious  detriment  to  them,  living 
as  they  do  under  degradingly  oppressive  laws  and  among 
a  people  hostile  to  the  recognition  of  their  manhood  and 
citizenship. 

216 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

Inasmuch  as  the  great  majority  of  the  whites  are  in 
cluded  in  the  more  fortunate  element  of  the  community,  and 
the  larger  body  of  the  colored  people  —  through  no  fault  of 
their  own,  but  because  of  the  greed,  avarice,  and  oppressions 
of  the  whites  —  constitute  the  less  fortunate  class,  it  is 
obviously  unfair  and  unreasonable  to  judge  the  Southern 
negroes  without  regard  to  their  opportunities,  relations,  and 
surroundings.  The  many  and  disheartening  disadvantages 
under  which  they  labor  materially  affect  the  question  of 
crime  among  them. 

If,  then,  the  total  number  of  colored  criminals  —  waiving 
for  the  time  being  the  blighting  and  deadly  effects  of  the 
operation  of  race  prejudice —  should  be  compared  with  the 
total  number  of  criminals  who  come,  not  from  the  whole 
white  race,  but  from  that  portion  of  it  nearest  to  the  colored 
people  in  opportunities  and  circumstances,  and  which  con 
stitutes  the  ordinary  laboring  class  of  the  whites,  it  may  or 
it  may  not  be  shown  that  the  colored  people  have  more  than 
their  proportional  share  of  criminals.  But,  be  this  as  it  may, 
there  are  forces,  manifold  forces,  irresistible  and  deadly  forces, 
such  as  no  white  man  ever  feels,  no  matter  how  ignorant, 
depraved,  or  even  dirty  he  may  be,  that  are  brought  to  bear 
day  bv  day  upon  every  member  of  the  colored  race,  and 
which  are  productive  of  criminality.  Satan  could  hardly  de 
vise  a  scheme  better  arranged  for  manufacturing  criminals  in 
the  largest  numbers  and  with  the  greatest  expedition  and 
thoroughness,  than  the  policy  and  methods  adopted  towards 
the  negro  by  the  reactionists  who  at  present  are  supported 
by  the  dominant  elements  of  the  white  people  of  the  South. 

The  colored  people  are  equal  citizens ;  they  are  copartners 
in  the  government ;  they  are  a  material  factor  in  its  support 
and  defence;  they  are  peaceful  and  law-abiding.  When, 
therefore,  a  wide-spread  reign  of  terror,  violence,  and  blood- 
shedding  is  inaugurated  to  accomplish  their  abasement  and 
degradation  ;  when  they  are  stripped  of  the  protection  of  the 

217 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

law,  their  manhood  is  trampled  in  the  dust,  and  they  are 
made  the  victims  of  open,  unremitting,  and  flagrant  persecu 
tions  by  a  religious  people,  —  conditions  exist  which  inevi 
tably  tend  to  the  multiplication  of  criminals  and  the  increase 
of  crime.  The  whites  thus  place  themselves  above  the  law, 
and  force  the  colored  people  below  it. 

Two  immediate  results  follow.  First,  the  whites,  regarding 
themselves  as  above  the  law,  will  hold  it  in  contempt  and  will 
be  a  law  unto  themselves  —  recognizing  and  being  controlled 
by  no  law,  save  their  own  unrestrained  passions,  in  dealing 
with  the  colored  man.  They  will  feel  free  to  treat  him 
according  to  their  whims,  whether  good  or  evil.  In  the 
second  place,  it  depresses  the  colored  man ;  it  blunts  his 
moral  perceptions ;  it  confuses  his  moral  conceptions ;  it 
deadens  his  sense  of  security  under  the  law ;  it  chills  in  his 
heart  respect  for  the  law  and  his  faith  in  the  honesty  of  the 
whites;  his  faith  in  the  justice  of  the  courts  is  undermined; 
he  is  enveloped  in  an  atmosphere  of  doubt,  distrust,  despair, 
or  desperation. 

Many  of  the  weaker-minded  among  the  negroes  are  driven 
into  crime ;  some  of  the  stronger- minded  are  perverted.  Is 
it  not  plain  that  when  the  idle,  thriftless,  or  weaker- minded 
negro,  or  the  one  criminally  bent,  sees  the  white  people  treat 
with  scorn,  contempt,  and  even  violence  the  legitimate  aspira 
tions  and  ambitions  of  the  negro  of  probity,  substance,  and 
intelligence,  and  refuse  him  the  considerations  due  an  honest 
man  and  good  citizen,  simply  because  of  the  color  of  his  skin, 
he  should  naturally  conclude  that  these  things  are  of  little  or 
no  value,  that  being  a  "  good  negro "  is  of  no  moment,  and 
that  the  bad  one  is  just  as  well  off  as  a  good  one  ? 

The  white  people  of  the  South  are  the  only  people  in  the 
history  of  the  world  —  aside  from  the  Boer  republics  of  South 
Africa,  which  a  just  and  avenging  God  has  removed  from  the 
face  of  the  earth  after  exacting  a  terrible  and  bloody  atone 
ment  —  who  with  deliberation  and  premeditation  have  sought 

218 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

to  prevent  a  people  as  free  as  themselves  under  the  law  of  the 
land  from  making  the  most  of  their  opportunities  to  advance 
in  a  Christian  civilization. 

The  Holy  Scriptures  say  that  out  of  the  mouth  of  two  or 
three  witnesses  shall  the  truth  be  established.  But  any 
number  of  Southerners,  men  in  the  highest  stations  of  life, 
may  be  put  in  the  witness  chair  to  testify  against  the  South 
in  the  wilful,  deliberate,  and  violent  persecution  of  the 
colored  people. 

Mr.  George  W.  Cable,  formerly  of  Louisiana,  and  proba 
bly  the  foremost  literary  man  that  the  South  has  produced 
since  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,  says  :  "  There  is  scarcely  one 
public  relation  of  life  in  the  South  where  the  negro  is  not 
arbitrarily  and  unlawfully  compelled  to  hold  toward  the 
white  man  the  attitude  of  an  alien,  a  menial,  and  a  probable 
reprobate  by  reason  of  his  color  "  ;  and  that  the  white  man 
"spurns  his  ambition,  tramples  upon  his  languishing  self- 
respect  and  indignantly  refuses  to  let  him  either  buy  with 
money  or  earn  by  excellence  of  inner  life  or  outward  behavior 
the  most  momentary  immunity  from  these  public  indignities, 
even  for  his  wife  and  daughters.  Steamboat  landing,  railway 
platform,  theatre,  concert  hall,  art  display,  public  library, 
public  school,  court-house,  church,  everything  —  flourish  the 
hot  branding  iron  of  ignominious  distinction."" 

Mr.  J.  Temple  Graves  of  Georgia  says  :  "  The  negro,  whom 
a  million  died  to  free,  is  in  present  bond  and  future  promise 
still  a  slave,  whipped  by  circumstances,  trodden  under  foot  of 
iron  and  ineradicable  prejudice ;  shut  out  forever  from  the 
heritage  of  liberty,  and  holding  in  his  black  hand  the  hollow 
parchment  of  his  franchise  as  a  free  man  looks  through  a 
slave's  eyes  at  the  impossible  barriers  which  imprison  him 
forever.  Straighten  the  hair  and  whiten  the  skin  of  the 
negro,  and  the  issue  is  closed." 

Senator  McEnery  of  Louisiana  says  :  "  The  negro  is  in 
ferior  in  every  essential  of  manhood ;  he  ought  not  to  aspire 

219 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

to  office  ;  he  will  be  compelled  to  occupy  an  inferior  and  sub 
ject  place." 

Mr.  A.  F.  Thomas,  of  Lynchburg,  Virginia,  in  discussing 
the  race  question  in  a  booklet  written  especially  to  influence 
the  recent  Constitutional  Convention  of  Virginia,  says  :  "  The 
negro  has  progressed  wonderfully ;  his  relative  position  is 
much  nearer  the  white  man's  standard  of  civilization  now  than 
thirty  years  ago  ;  yet  the  fact  is  apparent  that  the  races  are 
farther  apart  than  they  were  the  day  the  negro  was  emanci 
pated.  The  nearer  the  negro  approaches  to  the  white  man's 
standard  of  civilization,  the  less  love  there  is  between  them. 
Looking  backward  to  the  time  when  our  black  mammies 
were,  in  our  esteem,  second  only  to  our  mothers,  and  when 
we  played  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  negro  children,  and 
contrasting  it  with  the  clearly  defined  relations  that  exist  be 
tween  the  races  to-day,  we  readily  see  the  difference.  .  .  . 

"  A  black  man  who  has  never  committed  a  crime,  who  has 
always  lived  up  to  his  highest  ideals,  who  has  cultivated  his 
mind,  whose  moral  character  is  roundly  developed,  who  has 
been  frugal  and  industrious,  and  has  accumulated  wealth, 
goes  to  a  soda  fountain  to  slake  his  thirst ;  he  offers  in 
exchange  his  money,  but  is  refused  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  he  is  black  and  belongs  to  a  different  race.  A  man,  in 
the  land  of  his  nativity,  with  the  money  to  pay  for  the  goods, 
cannot,  on  account  of  race,  buy  the  articles  that  are  publicly 
offered  for  sale.  This  condition  exists  to-day,  thirty  years 
after  the  United  States  Constitution  had  proclaimed  the  civil 
and  political  equality  of  all  of  its  citizens.  .  .  . 

"If  we  take  the  view  that  the  negro  will  remain  here 
indefinitely,  then  the  only  solution  consistent  with  existence 
is  entire  subordination.  If  this  be  true,  it  is  the  greatest 
folly  to  educate  him  further  than  education  may  make  him 
more  efficient  in  the  sphere  which  he  must  occupy.  Viewed 
from  this  standpoint,  he  should  be  educated,  not  with  a  pur 
pose  of  lifting  him  to  a  higher  plane,  but  to  increase  his 

220 


THE    N-EGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

power  to  do  those  things  which  would  make  him  most  useful 
to  his  masters.  It  should  be  an  education  of  the  hand  rather 
than  the  head.  This  condition,  however  much  freedom  the 
race  might  nominally  have,  would  be  practically  a  mild  form 
of  slavery." 

Thus  Mr.  Thomas  admits  that  the  Southern  leaders  are 
aiming  at  the  establishment  of  "a  mild  form  of  slavery." 
But  the  old  system  of  slavery  began  as  a  comparatively  mild 
condition  and  gradually  descended  into  the  grossest  form, 
and  almost  wrecked  the  republic.  A  new  "mild  form  of 
slavery  "  would  degenerate  into  even  greater  cruelties  and  in 
humanities,  and  its  inauguration  would  mark  the  beginning  of 
the  end  of  republican  government.  It  would  be  the  death- 
knell  of  free  institutions. 

At  a  recent  meeting  of  the  State  Medical  Association  of 
Georgia,  one  of  its  members,  Dr.  E.  C.  Ferguson,  read  a 
paper  intended  to  demonstrate  that  the  negro  is  not  a 
human  being.  He  attacked  the  negro's  skin,  mouth,  lips, 
chin,  hair,  nose,  nostril,  ears,  and  navel ;  and  compared  him 
with  the  horse,  cow,  and  dog,  and  other  animals.  He 
declared  that  the  "  negro  is  monkeylike  ;  has  no  sympathy 
for  his  fellow-man ;  has  no  regard  for  the  truth,  and  when 
the  truth  would  answer  his  purpose  the  best,  he  will  lie.  He 
is  without  gratitude  or  appreciation  of  anything  done  for 
him  ;  is  a  natural  born  thief, —  will  steal  anything,  no  matter 
how  worthless. 

"  He  has  no  morals.  Turpitude  is  his  ideal  of  all  that 
pertains  to  life.  His  progeny  are  not  provided  for  at  home 
and  are  allowed  to  roam  at  large  without  restraint,  and  seek 
subsistence  as  best  they  can,  growing  up  like  any  animal." 

Some  of  the  things  that  Dr.  Ferguson  said  in  his  address 

are  really  not  fit  to  print.     And  yet  a  body  of  scientific  men 

—  Southern  gentlemen  —  listened  with  approval  and  heartily 

applauded  this  foul  assault  on  a  people  who  nursed  with  the 

tenderest  affection  and  all  of  a  mother's  love,  their  fathers 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

and  grandfathers,  mothers  and  grandmothers,  and  themselves  ; 
and  whose  devotion,  fidelity,  and  kindheartedness  were  never 
challenged  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  service.  If  Dr. 
Ferguson  had  a  sense  of  humor,  he  would  realize  that  his 
sweeping  and  unqualified  statement  makes  him  not  only  a 
dangerous  competitor  with  the  ablest  negro  in  the  art  of 
fabrication,  but  marks  him  as  a  man  who  may  eclipse  the 
cleverest  negro  who  "  will  lie  even  when  the  truth  would 
answer  his  purpose  the  best." 

The  Reverend  Thomas  Dixon.  Jr.,  of  North  Carolina, 
speaking  at  a  church  in  Baltimore,  said :  "  My  deliberate 
opinion  of  the  negro  is  that  he  is  not  worth  hell-room.  If 
I  were  the  devil  I  would  not  let  him  in  hell.1" 

This  same  divine,  in  a  book  that  he  published,  says  :  "  The 
more  you  educate,  the  more  impossible  you  make  his  position 
in  a  democracy.  Education  !  Can  you  change  the  color  of 
his  skin,  the  kink  of  his  hair,  the  bulge  of  his  lips,  the  spread 
of  his  nose,  or  the  beat  of  his  heart,  with  a  spelling-book  ? 
The  negro  is  a  human  donkey.  You  can  train  him,  but  you 
can't  make  him  a  horse.  Mate  him  with  horse,  you  lose  the 
horse  and  get  a  larger  donkey  called  a  mule,  incapable  of 
preserving  his  species."  The  moral  obliquity,  the  want  of 
charity,  the  absence  of  dignity  indicated  by  these  words, 
mark  off  their  author  as  seriously  beneath  the  standards 
of  thousands  of  educated  colored  men,  whose  life,  words,  and 
conduct  shame  these  critics  into  insignificance. 

The  Reverend  Henry  Frank  advocates  the  re-establish 
ment  of  slavery,  and  further  says  of  the  negro  :  "  His  native 
sluggishness,  and  the  evidence  of  his  general  extinction  since 
his  emancipation,  his  imperceptible  improvement  since  libera 
tion,  his  startling  lapse  into  barbarism,  all  must  incline  think 
ing  people  to  conclude  that  the  freeing  of  the  negro  was  a 
disastrous  failure." 

Senator  Tillman  of  South  Carolina,  the  Mad  Mullah  of 
American  politics,  has  used  on  the  floor  of  the  United  States 

222 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

Senate  and  on  the  lecture  platform  these  expressions :  "  Yes, 
we  have  stuffed  ballot-boxes,  and  will  stuff  them  again; 
we  have  cheated  niggers  in  elections,  and  will  cheat  them 
again ;  we  have  disfranchised  niggers,  and  will  disfranchise 
all  we  want  to ;  we  have  killed  and  lynched  niggers  and  will 
kill  and  lynch  others ;  we  have  burned  niggers  at  the  stake 
and  will  burn  others ;  a  nigger  has  no  right  to  live  anyhow, 
unless  a  white  man  wants  him  to  live.  If  you  don't  like  it 
you  can  lump  it." 

Cruel  and  scurrilous  attacks  and  defamations  of  this  char 
acter  against  the  colored  people  could  be  quoted  in  sufficient 
quantities  to  fill  a  volume.  But  those  just  mentioned,  taken 
in  connection  with  others  recorded  in  these  pages,  may  serve 
to  indicate  the  fierce  and  consuming  flames  of  persecution 
in  the  midst  of  which  the  colored  man  lives  and  moves  and 
has  his  being. 

A  people  so  vilely  abused  and  outrageously  persecuted 
are  made  an  easy  mark  for  malevolence  and  race  hatred. 
Unrestrained  abuse  of  the  colored  man  leads  surely  to  un 
restrained  oppression  and  violence.  And  these  are  not  con 
ditions  which  inspire  a  high  morality  or  favor  the  upbuilding 
of  character  ;  they  rather  tend  to  strangle  the  self-respect  and 
debase  the  souls  of  the  hapless  victims  and  shape  many  of 
them  into  criminals.  The  whites  cannot  sow  to  the  wind 
without  reaping  the  whirlwind. 

As  might  be  expected,  illustrations  in  the  concrete  of  the 
operation  of  this  bitter  persecution  abound  on  every  hand. 
Laws  are  enacted  and  enforced  in  the  spirit  of  persecution, 
and  the  colored  people  are  the  victims  of  such  laws ;  often 
they  are  condemned  without  even  the  form  or  semblance 
of  law. 

Regarding  the  latter,  planters  have  combined  or  conspired 
—  in  defiance  of  the  law  —  to  arrest  under  false  charges  the 
number  of  colored  men  needed  for  service,  hold  mock  trials, 
one  of  the  conspirators  acting  as  judge,  condemn  and  sentence 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

the  helpless  creatures  to  penal  servitude;  and  then  divide 
the  laborers  among  themselves,  put  them  in  chains,  and 
work  them  for  long  periods  of  time  on  their  plantations. 
And  this  crime  is  committed  against  liberty  and  humanity 
rather  than  pay  the  small  wages  which  agricultural  laborers 
command  in  the  South  ! 

And  as  to  the  former,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  more 
striking  examples  of  "  man's  inhumanity  to  man"  than  some 
of  the  crimes  committed  in  the  name  and  under  the  forms 
of  law  on  the  colored  people.  In  Alabama,  Mississippi, 
Georgia,  South  Carolina,  Louisiana,  and  some  of  the  other 
states,  labor  and  contract  laws  are  deliberately  framed  with 
the  view  of  facilitating  the  seizure  of  colored  men  and  selling 
them  into  practical  slavery. 

In  a  speech  recently  made  in  Congress  touching  this  matter, 
Mr.  Edgar  D.  Crumpacker  of  Indiana  said :  "  Under  exist 
ing  conditions  the  standard  of  living  among  the  colored  peo 
ple  of  the  South  is  low,  and  the  rate  of  wages  is  on  the  same 
basis.  The  colored  laborer  is  completely  at  the  mercy  of  the 
employer.  In  the  state  of  South  Carolina  to-day  there  is  a 
qualified  condition  of  industrial  serfdom.  Farm  laborers  are 
compelled  by  the  penal  laws  of  the  state  to  carry  out  their 
contracts  of  employment,  however  unjust  and  unfair  they 
may  be.  They  must  perform  all  '  the  labor  reasonably  re 
quired  '  of  them  by  the  contract  or  go  to  jail.  If  any  one 
knowingly  shall  employ  a  laborer  in  any  kind  of  service  who 
is  under  contract  to  labor  for  another,  he,  too,  is  liable  to 
fine  and  imprisonment,  even  though  the  workman  or  his 
family  may  be  on  the  verge  of  starvation.'1'1 

Under  these  laws  the  great  mass  of  the  colored  laborers  are 
placed  in  the  merciless  grasp  of  the  planters,  who  can  readily 
force  them  to  accept  any  form  of  contract  whatsoever.  Some 
of  the  planters,  under  a  carefully  devised  system  of  paying  the 
laborers  off  in  plantation  "  scrip "  or  "  checks,"  which  are 
heavily  discounted  mediums,  or  by  compelling  the  laborers 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

to  buy  their  supplies  at  the  "  plantation  store,"  where  exor 
bitant  rates  are  charged,  or  by  "  padding ""  the  accounts  of  the 
laborers,  manage  to  bring  them  out  in  debt  at  the  close  of 
each  year. 

And  this  system  is  carried  on  year  after  year,  and  the 
colored  man  never  gets  ahead  and  so  cannot  leave  his  plan 
tation  prison-pen.  The  planter  holds  the  laborer  in  debt  as 
long  as  it  suits  his  convenience  to  do  so.  The  laborer  has 
no  relief  in  the  law  of  the  state.  Such  hardships  drive  many 
colored  people  from  the  plantations  to  the  cities. 

In  the  name  of  the  law,  colored  men  may  also  be  arrested 
for  debt  and  sold  at  public  auction,  into  servitude.  And 
those  laborers  are  compelled  to  work  without  pay  while  their 
families  are  exposed  to  want  and  made  to  suffer ;  the  wages 
which  they  ought  to  receive  being  divided  between  the 
planters  and  the  magistrates. 

The  following  press  despatch  throws  some  light  on  this 
matter:  "The  Federal  grand  jury  at  Montgomery  is  ex 
pected  to  return  indictments  against  ten  prominent  '  slave 
holders  '  to-morrow.  They  will  be  charged  with  the  almost 
forgotten  crime  of  peonage.  Robert  M.  Franklin  is  already 
under  indictment  on  the  charge  of  keeping  a  negro  in  servi 
tude  for  a  year. 

"  The  system  was  called  to  the  attention  of  the  Department 
of  Justice  a  month  ago,  and  Chief  Wilkie  sent  Captain 
Dickey  to  Montgomery  to  investigate.  His  reports  indicate 
collusion  between  magistrates  and  plantation  owners  who 
wanted  cheap  help. 

"  The  plan  is  for  a  negro  to  be  brought  before  the  magis 
trate  on  charges  on  which  he  is  heavily  fined.  Some  white 
man  offers  to  pay  his  fine  and  save  him  from  jail  if  he  will 
agree  to  work  for  him  until  his  wages  reach  the  amount  of 
the  fine.  The  negroes,  it  is  alleged,  are  herded  together  and 
treated  like  convicts.  When  they  protest,  so  it  is  charged, 
they  are  whipped  and  beaten  until  they  are  cowed,  and  when 
15  225 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF   SLAVERY 

they  run  away  they  are  chased  with  dogs,  and  in  case  of 
recapture,  compelled  to  work  in  chains.  They  are  constantly 
under  the  eyes  of  armed  guards,  and  are  driven  to  the  limit 
of  human  endurance.  They  are  fed  only  enough  to  keep 
them  alive." 

As  a  further  illustration  of  the  operations  of  the  system 
the  following  press  despatch  will  prove  of  interest :  "  The  evi 
dence  in  the  case  of  Samuel  W.  Tyson  in  the  Federal  court 
which  ended  yesterday  makes  it  plain  that  slavery  still  exists 
in  the  United  States.  Tyson  was  ordered  to  pay  a  thousand 
dollars  fine,  but  he  handed  over  only  one  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  and  the  remainder  was  suspended  by  the  sympathetic 
judge. 

"  Tyson  runs  a  lumber  mill  in  Coffee  County.  There  were 
three  cases  against  him.  He  was  charged  with  holding  Will 
Brown,  Will  Thornton,  and  Nick  Anderson,  all  negroes,  in 
peonage.  Anderson  was  fined  five  dollars  for  assault  and 
battery.  E.  L.  Warren,  a  white  man,  confessed  judgment  for 
Anderson.  He  sold  Anderson  to  a  white  man  named  Grumpier 
for  sixty  dollars,  who  in  turn  swapped  him  to  Tyson  for  a 
negro,  Jerry  Stoval,  and  a  money  consideration. 

"  The  case  of  Brown  was  that  Brown  borrowed  a  dollar  from 
H.  B.  Grumpier  and  failed  to  pay  it  back.  He  was  arrested, 
put  in  jail,  handcuffed,  and  sold  to  Tyson  for  ninety-six  dollars 
and  fifty  cents.  Tyson  later  sold  Brown  to  George  Stephens 
for  thirty-six  dollars  and  fifty  cents.  Thornton  owed  C.  D. 
Clemens  some  money  that  he  could  not  pay.  Clemens  got 
him  and  sold  him  to  Tyson,  who  worked  him  under  guard  for 
three  months.11 

And  again  other  press  despatches,  which  are  fully  sustained 
by  the  best  authority,  reveal  with  circumstantial  detail  the 
criminal  practices  of  planters,  who,  with  the  connivance  of 
the  magistrates,  imprison  both  colored  men  and  women  on 
their  plantations  and  rob  them  of  the  fruits  of  their  labor. 
"  The  Department  of  Justice  is  preparing  to  take  up  again 

226 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

the  subject  of  peonage  in  the  South.  Additional  reports 
have  been  received  indicating  that  negroes  are  held  in  ser 
vitude.  Assistant  Attorney  General  Purdy  has  issued  in 
structions  to  the  United  States  attorney  for  the  western 
district  of  Louisiana  to  investigate  a  number  of  alleged 
cases  of  peonage  on  plantations  near  Monroe,  Ouachita  parish, 
and  other  points  in  that  vicinity.  Information  regarding 
these  cases  came  to  the  department  from  Judge  McDaniel, 
assistant  attorney  for  the  southern  district  of  Texas,  to  whom 
complaint  had  been  made  by  relatives  of  a  number  of  negroes 
alleged  to  have  been  illegally  held.  Some  of  the  stories  told 
are  sensational  in  the  extreme. 

"  In  addition  to  the  charges  made  by  negroes,  the  Texas 
officials  have  forwarded  the  statement  of  a  white  man  living 
in  Houston,  who  has  made  several  trips  through  northern 
Louisiana  recently,  and  who  says  that  many  colored  people 
of  both  sexes  are  being  illegally  restrained  of  their  liberty  in 
that  region. 

"  A  feature  of  the  affair  which  makes  it  of  unusual  interest 
is  the  intimation  that  some  of  the  peace  officers  are  in  collusion 
with  those  who  are  alleged  to  be  holding  the  negroes.  One 
man,  who  claimed  that  he  had  escaped  from  a  plantation  south 
of  Shreveport,  asked  Judge  McDanieFs  assistance  in  securing 
the  release  of  his  brother,  who  was  still  detained  there.  This 
person  asserted  that  whenever  negroes  who  tried  to  escape 
were  caught,  they  were  soundly  beaten  and  taken  back. 

"  If  they  succeeded  in  getting  as  far  as  Shreveport,  he  said, 
they  were  taken  in  charge  by  the  officers  and  immediately 
returned.  The  owner  of  the  plantation  lived  at  Shreveport, 
he  claimed,  and  the  officers  worked  in  collusion  with  him. 

"  Not  long  ago  A.  U.  Crenshaw,  a  negro,  who  lives  at 
Ledbetter,  Texas,  showed  Judge  McDaniel  and  Marshal 
Hanson  a  letter  from  his  brother,  who,  it  was  alleged,  was 
held  in  bondage  near  Monroe.  This  communication  told  of 
awful  conditions  among  the  negroes  there. 

227 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"  Crenshaw  gave  Marshal  Hanson  a  sum  of  money,  which 
Hanson  forwarded  to  the  marshal  of  the  western  district  of 
Louisiana,  with  instructions  that  it  be  given  to  Crenshaw's 
brother.  Later  the  money  order  was  returned  by  a  man  who 
said  he  was  the  deputy  marshal  and  was  acting  in  the  place  of 
the  marshal,  who  had  died,  but  that  he  could  do  nothing  in 
the  premises,  since  the  order  was  not  payable  to  him.  The 
necessary  change  was  made  and  the  order  sent  on  again. 
Considerable  time  has  elapsed  and  nothing  has  been  heard 
of  it. 

"  A  negro  named  Johnson,  whose  character  has  been 
vouched  for  by  white  people  who  knew  him  in  Texas,  has 
also  written  to  Houston,  claiming  that  he  and  his  wife  are 
being  held  in  bondage  and  are  refraining  from  attempting  to 
escape  because  they  fear  they  will  be  recaptured  and  beaten 
or  killed. 

"  All  such  letters  have  been  sent  out  surreptitiously,  the 
writers  being  afraid  to  forward  them  through  the  regular 
channels. 

"  Judge  McDaniel  expresses  the  opinion  that  hundreds  of 
negroes  are  being  held  in  the  region  indicated." 

The  Independent  of  New  York  City,  a  leading  family 
journal,  commissioned  one  of  its  representatives  to  examine 
into  this  new  form  of  slavery  in  the  South,  and  it  spreads 
before  its  readers  in  a  recent  issue  a  typical  case  of  a  colored 
man  held  in  slavery  for  thirteen  years.  The  narrative  is  har 
rowing  indeed,  and  the  saddest  reflection  is  that  it  is  only  one 
of  many  thousands  that  may  be  chronicled  in  the  same 
state  in  which  this  occurred. 

An  additional  feature  is  that  a  state  senator,  a  maker  of 
the  laws,  was  the  owner  of  the  slave  camp,  and  thus  the 
oppressor  of  those  who  were  equal  citizens,  subjecting  them, 
men  and  women,  to  the  most  humiliating  treatment,  and 
filching  from  them  all  the  fruits  of  their  hard  and  exacting 
toil.  The  experiences  and  observation  of  this  colored  man, 

228 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

who  was  held  in  bondage  and  treated  as  a  slave  for  that 
length  of  time,  as  told  by  himself,  are  in  part  as  follows  :  — 

"  The  senator  had  bought  an  additional  thousand  acres  of 
land,  and  to  his  already  large  cotton  plantation  he  added  two 
great  big  saw-mills  and  went  into  the  lumber  business. 
Within  two  years  the  senator  had  in  all  nearly  two  hun 
dred  negroes  working  on  his  plantation.  .  .  . 

"  Two  or  three  years  before,  or  about  a  year  and  a  half 
after  the  senator  had  started  his  camp,  he  had  established  a 
large  store,  which  was  called  the  commissary.  All  of  us  free 
laborers  were  compelled  to  buy  our  supplies  —  food,  clothing, 
etc.  —  from  that  store.  We  never  used  any  money  in  our 
dealings  with  the  commissary,  only  tickets  or  orders,  and  we 
had  a  general  settlement  once  each  year,  in  October.  In  this 
store  we  were  charged  all  sorts  of  high  prices  for  goods,  be 
cause  every  year  we  would  come  out  in  debt  to  our  employer. 
If  not  that,  we  seldom  had  more  than  five  or  ten  dollars 
coming  to  us  —  and  that  for  a  whole  year's  work.  Well,  at 
the  close  of  the  tenth  year,  when  we  kicked  and  meant  to 
leave  the  senator,  he  said  to  some  of  us  with  a  smile  (and  I 
never  will  forget  that  smile  —  I  can  see  it  now) :  '  Boys,  I  'm 
sorry  you  Ye  going  to  leave  me.  I  hope  you  will  do  well  in 
your  new  places  —  so  well  that  you  will  be  able  to  pay  me 
the  little  balances  which  most  of  you  owe  me.' 

"  Word  was  sent  out  for  all  of  us  to  meet  him  at  the  com 
missary  at  two  o'clock.  There  he  told  us  that,  after  we  had 
signed  what  he  called  a  written  acknowledgment  of  our 
debts  we  might  go  and  look  for  new  places.  The  store 
keeper  took  us  one  by  one  and  read  to  us  statements  of  our 
accounts.  According  to  the  books  there  was  no  man  of  us 
who  owed  the  senator  less  than  $100;  some  of  us  were  put 
down  for  as  much  as  $200.  I  owed  8165,  according  to  the 
bookkeeper.  No  one  of  us  would  have  dared  to  dispute  a 
white  man's  word  —  oh,  no  —  we  were  after  getting  away ; 
and  we  had  been  told  that  we  might  go,  if  we  signed  the 

229 


THE   AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

acknowledgments.  We  would  have  signed  anything,  just  to 
get  away.  So  we  stepped  up,  we  did,  and  made  our  marks. 
That  same  night  we  were  rounded  up  by  a  constable  and  ten 
or  twelve  white  men,  who  aided  him,  and  were  locked  up, 
every  one  of  us,  in  one  of  the  senator's  stockades.  The  next 
morning  it  was  explained  to  us  by  the  two  guards  appointed 
to  watch  us  that,  in  the  papers  we  had  signed  the  day  before, 
we  had  not  only  made  acknowledgment  of  our  indebtedness, 
but  that  we  had  also  agreed  to  work  for  the  senator  until 
the  debts  were  paid  by  hard  labor.  And  from  that  day 
forward  we  were  treated  just  like  convicts.  Really  we  had 
made  ourselves  lifetime  slaves,  or  peons,  as  the  laws  called  us. 
But,  call  it  slavery,  peonage,  or  what  not,  the  truth  is  we 
lived  in  a  hell  on  earth  what  time  we  spent  in  the  senator's 
peon  camp. 

"  My  wife  fared  better  than  I  did,  as  did  the  wives  of  some 
of  the  other  negroes,  because  the  white  men  about  the  camp 
used  these  unfortunate  creatures  as  their  mistresses.  When 
I  was  first  put  in  the  stockade  my  wife  was  still  kept  for  a 
while  in  the  '  Big  House,1  but  my  little  boy,  who  was  only  nine 
years  old,  was  given  away  to  a  negro  family  across  the  river 
in  South  Carolina,  and  I  never  saw  or  heard  of  him  after 
that.  When  I  left  the  camp  my  wife  had  had  two  children 
for  some  one  of  the  white  bosses,  and  she  was  living  in  fairly 
good  shape  in  a  little  house  off  to  herself.  But  the  poor 
negro  women  who  were  not  in  the  class  with  my  wife  fared 
almost  as  bad  as  the  helpless  negro  men.  Most  of  the  time 
the  women  who  were  peons  or  convicts  were  compelled  to  wear 
men's  clothes.  Sometimes,  when  I  have  seen  them  dressed 
like  men,  and  plowing  or  hoeing  or  hauling  logs,  or  working 
at  the  blacksmith's  trade,  just  the  same  as  men,  my  heart 
would  bleed  and  my  blood  would  boil,  but  I  was  powerless  to 
raise  a  hand.  It  would  have  meant  death  on  the  spot  to 
have  said  a  word.  Of  the  first  six  women  brought  to  the 
camp,  two  of  them  gave  birth  to  children  after  they  had  been 

230 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

there  not  more  than  tvvel\7e  months  —  and  the  babies  had 
white  men  for  their  fathers  ! 

"  The  stockades  in  which  we  slept  were,  I  believe,  the  filth 
iest  places  in  the  world.  They  were  cesspools  of  nastiness. 
During  the  thirteen  years  that  I  was  there  I  am  willing  to 
swear  that  a  mattress  was  never  moved  after  it  had  been 
brought  there,  except  to  turn  it  over  once  or  twice  a  month. 
No  sheets  were  used,  only  dark-colored  blankets.  Most  of 
the  men  slept  every  night  in  the  clothing  that  they  had 
worked  in  all  day.  Some  of  the  worst  characters  were  made 
to  sleep  in  chains.  The  doors  were  locked  and  barred  each 
night,  and  tallow  candles  were  the  only  lights  allowed. 
Really  the  stockades  were  but  little  more  than  cow-lots, 
horse-stables  or  hog-pens.  Strange  to  say,  not  a  great  num 
ber  of  these  people  died  while  I  was  there,  though  a  great 
many  came  away  maimed  and  bruised,  and,  in  some  cases, 
disabled  for  life. 

"  It  was  a  hard  school,  that  peon  camp  was,  but  I  learned 
more  there  in  a  few  short  months  by  contact  with  those  poor 
fellows  from  the  outside  world  than  ever  I  had  known  before. 
Most  of  what  I  learned  was  evil,  and  I  now  know  that  I 
should  have  been  better  off  without  the  knowledge,  but  much 
of  what  I  learned  was  helpful  to  me.  Barring  two  or  three 
severe  and  brutal  whippings  which  I  received,  I  got  along 
very  well,  all  things  considered ;  but  the  system  is  damnable. 
A  favorite  way  of  whipping  a  man  was  to  strap  him  down  to 
a  log,  flat  on  his  back,  and  spank  him  forty  or  sixty  times  on 
his  bare  feet  and  limbs  with  a  shingle  or  a  huge  piece  of 
plank.  When  the  man  would  get  up  with  sore  and  blistered 
feet  and  an  aching  body,  if  he  could  not  then  keep  up  with 
the  other  men  at  work  he  would  be  strapped  to  the  log 
again,  this  time  face  downward,  and  would  be  lashed  with  a 
buggy  trace  on  his  bare  back.  .  .  . 

"One  of  the  usual  ways  to  secure  laborers  for  a  large 
peonage  camp  is  for  the  proprietor  to  send  out  an  agent  to 


THE   AFTERMATH   OF    SLAVERY 

the  little  courts  in  the  towns  and  villages ;  and  where  a  man 
charged  with  some  petty  offence  has  no  friends  or  money,  the 
agent  will  urge  him  to  plead  guilty,  with  the  understanding 
that  the  agent  will  pay  his  fine,  and  in  that  way  save  him 
from  the  disgrace  of  being  sent  to  jail  or  the  chain-gang! 
For  this  high  favor  the  man  must  sign  beforehand  a  paper 
signifying  his  willingness  to  go  to  the  farm  and  work  out  the 
amount  of  the  fine  imposed.  When  he  reaches  the  farm  he 
has  to  be  fed  and  clothed,  to  be  sure,  and  these  things  are 
charged  up  to  his  account.  By  the  time  he  has  worked  out 
his  first  debt  another  is  hanging  over  his  head,  and  so  on  and 
so  on,  by  a  sort  of  endless  chain,  for  an  indefinite  period  ;  as 
in  every  case  the  indebtedness  is  arbitrarily  arranged  by  the 
employer.  In  many  cases  it  is  very  evident  that  the  court 
officials  are  in  collusion  with  the  proprietors  or  agents,  and 
that  they  divide  the  'graft1  among  themselves.  As  an 
example  of  this  dickering  among  the  whites,  every  year  many 
convicts  were  brought  to  the  senator's  camp  from  a  certain 
county  in  South  Georgia,  way  down  in  the  turpentine  district. 
The  majority  of  these  men  were  charged  with  adultery.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  been  here  in  the  district  since  they  released  me, 
and  I  reckon  1 11  die  either  in  a  coal  mine  or  an  iron  furnace  : 
it  don't  make  much  difference  which.  Either  is  better  than 
a  Georgia  peon  camp.  And  a  Georgia  peon  camp  is  hell 
itself!" 

This  unfortunate  man  also  relates  the  cruel  and  revolting 
manner  in  which  colored  women  were  thrown  across  a  barrel 
and  brutally  flogged. 

The  New  York  World  prints  a  picture  of  a  "Stockade 
Pen"  in  South  Carolina,  showing  the  hapless  negroes  at 
work  in  convict  garbs,  surrounded  by  bloodhounds  and 
guards.  And  after  stating  that  the  negroes  whom  Abraham 
Lincoln  emancipated  and  whose  emancipation  a  million  men 
died  to  seal  are  still  held  and  treated  as  slaves,  proceeds  to 
give  these  details  :  "  Convict  slaves  are  traded  freely  among 

232 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

the  land  owners.  They  are  forced  to  labor,  for  which  they 
receive  no  pay ;  they  are  flogged,  made  to  work  when  ill, 
made  the  victims  of  '  man-hunts,"*  and  otherwise  ill-used. 
Women  are  treated  with  similar  cruelty. 

"  When  the  stock  of  convicts  gives  out,  innocent  negroes, 
it  is  now  proved,  are  railroaded  into  the  penitentiary,  and 
thence  obtained  by  the  men  who  become  their  masters.  The 
system  has  continued  for  years  in  open  defiance  of  law  and 
humanity.  These  are  facts  now  officially  verified. 

"  The  offenders  are  so  well  protected  by  money  and  influ 
ence  that  it  is  doubtful  if  they  can  be  punished,  or  even  that 
the  practice  can  be  stopped.  If  these  proceedings  are  not  at 
first  clear,  here  are  the  details :  William  A.  Neal,  of  Ander 
son,  who  was  superintendent  of  the  state  penitentiary,  and 
who  was  tried  in  court  for  being  short  in  his  accounts,  was 
the  first  man  to  introduce  the  convict  lease  system  in  Ander 
son  County.  A  stockade  was  built  and  convicts  from  the 
penitentiary,  which  was  overcrowded  with  criminals,  were 
sent  under  guard  to  the  place;  it  being  arranged  that  the 
state  was  to  receive  a  revenue. 

"The  plan  worked  splendidly  for  the  planters.  The 
expense  was  small,  and  the  lash,  freely  administered,  made  the 
negroes  give  the  best  of  their  efforts  for  the  managers. 

"  At  this  time  plans  were  quietly  put  on  foot  to  seize 
ignorant  negroes,  have  mock  trials,  and  commit  them  to  the 
stockades  where  their  labor  could  be  had  for  the  scant  food 
offered  and  the  expense  of  the  convict  garb  and  shackles. 

"  From  the  state  stockade  relatives  of  the  managers  built 
private  prisons  on  the  big  farms  and  a  ransom  was  paid  for 
every  negro  seized  and  sent  in.  It  was  the  same  system  of 
'  shanghaiing '  transferred  from  the  sea  to  the  farm. 

"  Recent  developments  have  given  an  inside  view  into  the 
operation  of  the  prisons,  and  the  discovery  of  the  private 
stockades  has  shown  a  more  terrible  condition  than  was  at 
first  imagined.  .  .  . 

233 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"  Not  one  of  the  freed  slaves  has  dared  to  testify  against 
the  man  who  outrageously  ill-used  him.  There  are  too  many 
sharp  eyes  about,  too  many  pistols,  too  many  bloodhounds, 
and  the  unfortunate  creatures  were  long  since  cowed  out  of 
every  likeness  to  their  manhood.  More  potent  than  any  law 
on  earth  is  the  unreasoning  fear  which  the  brutal  slave 
owners  have  succeeded  in  infusing  into  the  very  life-blood  of 
the  creatures  they  have  deprived  of  liberty.  .  .  . 

"The  death  of  Will  Hull,  a  poor  negro,  who  had  been 
seized  on  a  trumped-up  charge  and  illegally  committed  to  the 
stockade,  led  to  the  investigation.  Hull  protested  against 
his  incarceration,  asked  for  a  fair  trial,  and  got  a  blow  from  a 
club.  Then  the  negro  planned  to  escape,  and  at  night,  with 
the  chains  still  binding  his  legs,  he  stole  forth. 

"  But  the  guards  had  orders  to  watch  him.  As  Hull  was 
going  away,  a  bullet  from  a  54-calibre  rifle  bored  its  way  into 
his  brain  and  he  fell  dead.  .  .  . 

"  The  most  appalling  of  the  abuses  is  that  women  were 
seized  and  made  to  work.  They  were  whipped  with  cat-o- 
nine- tails  because  they  failed  to  scrub  and  work  when  com 
mon  humanity  showed  that  they  should  have  been  in 
hospitals ;  and  there  was  no  protest.  .  .  . 

"When  sport  got  dull  on  the  stockade  plantations,  the 
bloodhounds  were  called  forth,  and  the  speediest  negroes  were 
unshackled. 

"  Sunday  was  the  big  day  for  sporting  blood  to  boil,  and 
this  thirst  could  only  be  satisfied  with  a  vicious  '  man-hunt.' 
The  negroes  were  unshackled  and  sent  running  through 
the  swamps  and  over  the  hills.  There  was  no  danger  of 
making  an  effectual  escape.  Two  hours  after  the  negroes 
left  the  pen,  the  dogs  were  unleashed.  Men  on  horseback 
were  ready  for  the  start,  and  with  yelping  and  crying  the 
trail  was  followed  and  the  'man-hunt'  was  on.  Once  a 
negro  failed  to  reach  safety  in  a  tree,  and  he  was  mangled 
fearfully. 

234 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

"  The  so-called  contracts  by  which  these  negroes  were 
jailed  gave  the  owners  the  right  to  sell  or  trade  them  as 
they  saw  fit.  They  were  used  and  handled  as  convicts,  when 
in  fact  they  were  free  citizens.  But  laws  are  not  a  figure  in 
these  dens  of  iniquity. 

"The  men  had  to  wear  stripes;  and  they  had  to  bear 
shackles.  When  night  came  and  work  had  to  stop  they  were 
sent  to  the  pens,  locked  in,  and  guarded.  Long  before  day 
light  they  were  called  out,  and  with  the  first  dawn  they  were 
toiling  in  the  fields.  When  sickness  made  them  unfit  for 
work,  they  were  whipped  and  lashed  for  trifling.  Even  the 
hot  iron  is  said  to  have  been  used,  and  the  grand  jury  is 
searching  for  the  slaves  who  were  branded  like  wild  cattle.11 

The  World  also  says  that  the  grand  jury  by  its  "  verdict 
accuses  scores  of  wealthy  South  Carolinians  of  practices  of 
atrocious  villany.r> 

The  Chicago  Tribune  of  recent  date  prints  this  press  de 
spatch  :  "  A  special  to  the  Tribune  from  Savannah  says  that 
state  senator  Foye  of  Egypt,  Georgia,  has  been  brought  here 
under  arrest  by  Federal  officers  on  a  charge  of  holding  negroes 
in  bondage.  Foye  is  one  of  the  wealthiest  men  in  south 
Georgia  and  is  a  Democratic  leader.  He  conducts  several 
large  turpentine  farms  near  Egypt,  and  Federal  officers  assert 
that  he  is  holding  many  negroes  as  slaves.  The  negroes  are 
confined  at  night  in  stockades  and  are  worked  in  chains 
during  the  day.11 

The  gravity  of  the  situation  is  emphasized  in  a  recent  event. 
The  Honorable  William  H.  Moody,  Attorney-General  of  the 
United  States,  in  filing  a  brief  with  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  in  a  peonage  case  recently  brought  before 
that  high  tribunal  from  Georgia,  uses  these  startling  words: 
"  Immediately  upon  the  certification  of  this  case  to  the  su 
preme  court,  several  of  the  district  judges  in  the  fifth  circuit, 
in  which  numerous  prosecutions  for  violations  of  this  statute 
were  pending,  refused  to  try  any  of  the  cases,  and  postponed 

235 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

the  same  to  await  the  decision  of  the  court  in  this  case.  It 
is  therefore  quite  evident  that  the  executive  arm  of  the  law, 
so  far  at  least  as  the  enforcement  of  this  statute  is  concerned, 
is  practically  paralyzed,  even  in  the  most  typical  and  flagrant 
cases.  We  think  we  may  truthfully  say  that  upon  the  decision 
of  this  case  hangs  the  liberty  of  thousands  of  persons,  mostly 
colored,  it  is  true,  who  are  now  being  held  in  a  condition  of 
involuntary  servitude,  in  many  cases  worse  than  slavery  itself, 
by  the  unlawful  acts  of  individuals,  not  only  in  violation  of 
the  Thirteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  but  in  viola 
tion  of  the  law  which  we  have  here  under  consideration." 

Thus  it  is  shown  that  forty  years  after  the  destruction  of 
slavery,  a  new  system  of  servitude  is  in  operation,  concerning 
which  the  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States  informs  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  that  the  executive  arm 
of  the  Government  is  paralyzed  in  dealing  with  it.  If 
the  Southern  leaders  are  given  a  free  hand  for  fifty  or  a 
hundred  years  more,  the  fate  of  the  colored  man  will  be  worse 
than  in  the  blackest  day  of  slavery. 

The  legislature  of  Georgia,  a  few  years  ago,  appointed  a 
committee  to  investigate  the  operations  of  the  penal  system 
of  the  state.  The  committee  reported  a  shocking  state  of 
affairs,  both  in  chain-gangs  and  in  many  convict  stockades 
scattered  over  the  state.  It  showed  that  colored  men  and 
women  were  poorly  fed ;  worked  to  the  limit  of  human 
endurance  and  beyond  it ;  that  the  sick  forced  to  work,  in 
some  cases,  had  died  while  at  the  task  ;  that  men  were  held 
for  years  after  their  sentences  had  expired,  because  they  were 
profitable  workmen  ;  that  convicts  were  brutally  flogged  —  in 
some  cases  whipped  to  death  ;  that  they  were  shot  to  death  at 
times  without  justification  ;  and  that  they  were  subject  to 
many  other  inhumanities.  But  it  appears  that  the  condition 
of  these  unfortunate  people  has  not  been  bettered. 

An  official  investigation  of  the  penal  system  of  Florida  dis 
closed  even  greater  abuses.  In  this  state  it  was  shown  that 

236 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

convicts  were  murdered  because  they  dared  to  protest  against 
being  held  after  their  sentences  had  expired  ;  and  any  com 
plaint  meant  floggings  and  probable  death. 

The  chain-gangs  in  Atlanta,  Georgia,  reek  with  horrible 
inhumanities.  In  that  city  colored  girls  of  tender  age,  who 
were  guilty  of  no  other  offence  than  that  of  "  sassing  back  " 
at  the  "Missus,"  have  been  sent  to  the  chain-gang  stockade. 
The  lesson  of  abject  submission  must  be  enforced.  In  this 
stockade  colored  men  and  women  are  brutally  beaten  on  the 
slightest  pretext. 

Another  horrible  feature  of  the  terrible  system  is  that 
colored  women  and  girls  are  used  for  the  purpose  of  training 
the  bloodhounds.  These  unfortunates,  in  some  cases  so  poorly 
and  lightly  clad  as  to  sicken  the  moral  sense  of  the  ordinary 
citizen,  are  summoned  to  "  quarters,"  and  at  the  crack  of  the 
driver's  whip  they  flee  to  the  woods,  and  must  climb  trees  be 
fore  the  yelping  bloodhounds  can  overtake  them,  or  else  their 
bodies  will  be  fearfully  mangled.  This  is  oft  repeated. 

A  writer  in  the  Springfield  (Massachusetts)  Republican 
says :  "  As  one  who  has  been  in  close  contact  with  the  social 
systems  of  the  Southern  states  and  knows  very  well  the  work 
ings  of  this  penal  system,  particularly  of  Georgia,  let  me  say 
to  you  that  the  system  of  criminal  justice,  or  rather  injustice, 
applied  to  the  negro  is  but  a  system  of  the  worst  slavery  in 
itself.  It  is  justified  in  the  minds  of  men  by  the  seldom 
spoken,  yet  because  silent,  nevertheless  potent,  belief  and  con 
viction  that  the  '  nigger  ought  to  be  a  slave  anyway.1 

"  Slavery  fostered  and  has  bequeathed  to  the  population  of 
the  South  a  cruelty  and  a  crudity  of  criminal  punishment 
foreign  to  the  humane  spirit  of  our  age ;  and  so  outrageous  is 
the  system  that  it  would  long  ago  have  been  abolished  if  it 
were  not  for  the  fact  that  it  is  the  negro  who  suffers  most  by 
it.  The  penitentiaries,  or  convict  settlements,  for  there  are 
no  penitentiaries,  are  simply  unspeakable.  And  the  treat 
ment  of  the  convicts  in  the  camps  by  lessees  who  pay  the 

237 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

state  eleven  dollars  a  year  for  an  able-bodied  man,  is  such 
that  an  average  of  three  years  and  five  months  of  life  in  one 
of  these  camps  is  the  record,  while  no  man  has  ever  been 
known  to  survive  more  than  seventeen  years. 

"  A  few  of  the  many  cases  that  came  under  my  personal 
observation  might  be  of  general  interest.  I  saw  a  boy  twelve 
years  old  sent  to  one  of  these  camps  for  larceny,  for  a  term  of 
three  years.  There  are  no  places  for  juvenile  offenders,  and  it 
is  not  strange  if  their  own  chickens  come  home  to  roost  in  the 
shape  of  rape  and  theft  and  general  cussedness  by  young 
criminals  who  have  been  schooled  in  these  prisons. 

44 1  saw  a  man  who  had  served  a  term  under  a  convict  lease 
in  a  brick  company's  camp  and  the  condition  of  that  man's 
hands  from  handling  hot  bricks,  and  the  condition  of  his  back 
from  stripes  received  were  suggestive  of  the  very  limit,  not 
only  of  human  cruelty  but  the  limit  of  human  endurance  as 
well. 

"  I  saw  a  man  returned  after  a  term  of  four  years,  and  the 
sides  of  the  fellow,  his  elbows,  his  shoulders,  hips,  and  the 
side  of  his  legs  were  hard  and  calloused  from  lying  on  his 
sides  in  the  mine,  where  the  opening  was  not  allowed  to  be 
made  sufficiently  large  for  comfortable  work,  and  where,  he 
told  me,  he  had  often  worked  far  into  the  night,  to  send 
up  his  '  stint"  before  the  bucket  came  down  with  the  order 
to  get  in  and  come  up  ;  only  to  return  at  sun-up  in  the 
morning. 

"  A  mother,  half  white,  with  her  daughter  lighter  still, 
about  fifteen  years  old,  came  to  me  one  day  to  inquire  if  any 
redress  could  be  had  against  the  convict  authorities  for  the 
inhuman  treatment  of  the  girl,  while  serving  a  year's  sentence 
in  the  stockade  for  some  trivial  offence.  She  had  been 
whipped  unmercifully,  as  scars  on  her  shoulders  and  upper 
back  plainly  showed,  and  I  was  afterward  told  by  the 
physician  to  whom  I  sent  her  for  treatment  that  she  had  a 
running  sore  on  her  hip,  caused  by  a  cut  made  by  a  strap  in 

238 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

the  hands  of  the  '  whipping  boss.'  The  '  whipping  boss,1  be 
it  known,  is  a  legal  functionary  and  an  invariable  and  much 
overworked  adjunct  to  every  convict  settlement.  This  child, 
for  she  was  not  more,  and  frail  at  that,  was  at  the  time  I  saw 
her,  shortly  after  her  release,  four  months  pregnant  by  one  of 
the  guards ;  which  one  she  did  not  know.  The  mother's  grief 
was  pitiful.  There  was  nothing  to  be  done.  It  is  easy  to 
surmise  what  the  remedy  would  have  been  had  the  color  of 
the  skins  of  the  respective  parties  been  reversed. 

"  Two  stalwart  fellows  came  with  a  friend  one  night  to 
consult  me  about  their  situation.  It  was  a  sorry  plight, 
indeed.  They  had  escaped  from  the  chain-gang,  after  being 
unmercifully  beaten.  Both  were  so  cut  and  bruised  across 
the  back  that  their  shirts  stuck  in  places  to  the  open  sores. 
They  were  desperate  and  frantic  with  fear  lest  they  should  be 
apprehended,  and  declared  they  would  rather  die  than  return 
to  the  camp.  This  friend,  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  do  for 
them,  fearing  to  be  seen  in  their  company,  brought  them  to 
me.  I  could  do  nothing  for  them,  but  advised  them  to  get 
out  of  the  country.  They  took  the  hint  and  started. 

"The  one  least  injured  was  overtaken  by  the  bloodhounds 
next  day,  and  brought  into  court  to  be  resentenced  as  an 
'  escape,"1  which  means,  under  the  law,  doubling  his  sentence. 
He  was  shot  a  few  weeks  later,  as  it  was  said,  in  an  attempt 
to  escape.  The  other  I  never  heard  from.  This  is  no  tale 
of  sixteenth-century  barbarity,  but  of  living,  existing  facts  of 
our  own  day  and  in  our  own  land.  I  can  make  no  more  tell 
ing  comment  on  the  negro-con vict-lease  system  than  to  quote 
the  language  of  one  of  Georgia's  men,  who  sees  in  it  a  blot 
upon  our  civilization  and  a  disgrace  to  humanity.  Dr.  Felton, 
a  few  years  ago,  while  a  member  of  the  Georgia  legislature, 
said  :  '  If  the  fiends  of  hell  had  undertaken  to  devise  a  penal 
system,  devilish,  barbarous,  and  malignant,  they  could  not 
have  succeeded  more  fully  than  Georgia  has  succeeded  in  her 
system.'  And  what  is  true  of  Georgia  is  also  true  of  the 

239 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

whole  South  on  this  subject.  Such  a  system  is  only  possible 
where  two  centuries  of  slavery  have  blunted  human  hearts  to 
all  the  finer  instincts  concerning  the  rights  of  the  subject 
race.  One  is  prone  to  believe  with  Samuel  Clemens  that, 
'while  there  are  many  humorous  things,  one  of  the  most 
ludicrous  is  the  fact  that  the  white  man  thinks  he  is  less 
savage  than  the  other  savages.' " 

So  the  penal  system  in  the  South,  which  ought  to  be  oper 
ated  for  the  punishment  or  correction  of  criminals,  is  proved 
by  the  records  of  the  United  States  courts  and  competent 
witnesses  to  be  itself  an  organized  system  of  crime ;  and  is 
administered  in  many  instances  by  criminal  officials  who  are 
more  deserving  of  punishment  than  the  criminals  in  stripes. 
These  records  also  show  that  the  makers  of  the  law,  the 
magistrates  of  the  law,  and  the  sheriffs  or  guardians  of  the 
law  are  in  many  instances  participes  criminis  in  the  breaking 
of  the  law  and  the  violation  of  the  liberty  of  citizens. 

After  a  colored  man  or  woman  has  passed  through  the 
hands  of  such  "  schoolmasters'"  and  such  a  "  school  of  crime,'1'' 
what  hope  is  there  for  such  a  being  ?  The  state  courts  take 
no  cognizance  of  these  things.  The  white  people  have  all 
the  power  necessary  to  blot  out  these  terrible  evils  in  a  week. 

This  must  be  conclusive,  if  one  would  but  consider  what 
would  be  done  if  the  case  was  reversed  ?  Suppose  that  colored 
farmers  were  arresting  white  men  and  women  on  trumped-up 
charges  and  working  them  by  day  in  chains  and  sleeping  them 
in  stockades  and  subjecting  them  to  the  same  abuses  which 
colored  men  and  women  are  now  compelled  to  endure.  Would 
the  whites  submit  to  such  conditions  for  twenty-four  hours  ? 
If  necessary,  to  wipe  out  such  crimes,  would  not  negro  blood 
flow  as  free  as  water  ?  These  evils  can  be  remedied  and  that 
quickly,  if  there  were  a  disposition  to  accomplish  it. 

They  are  allowed  to  exist  because  they  are  tributary  to 
the  plans  of  the  reactionists,  to  depress  the  spirit  of  the 
colored  people  and  aid  in  making  them  a  subject  race  by 

240 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

closing  "  the  door  of  hope  "  to  them.  The  leaders  are  acting 
on  the  principle  that  every  humiliation,  oppression,  or  out 
rage  inflicted  on  the  colored  people  helps  to  undermine  the 
itwrale  of  the  race  and  make  alienation  and  subjugation 
easier. 

There  are  illustrations  in  the  concrete  of  other  and  more 
sanguinary  persecutions  of  which  the  colored  people  are  the 
helpless  victims.  These  are  riots  and  lynchings.  The  reac 
tionists  through  secret  societies,  on  the  order  of  the  Ku  Klux 
Klan,  are  thoroughly  organized.  They  can  produce  riots 
and  lynchings  as  by  clockwork.  At  Wilmington,  North 
Carolina,  after  rioting  and  shooting  down  colored  men  on 
the  streets  for  three  days,  the  rioters  were  called  off  as  sud 
denly  as  they  had  assembled. 

When  the  leaders  pass  the  word  for  the  rioters  to  act  — 
they  act.  When  they  say  stop  — the  rioters  stop.  If  they 
decide  that  a  lesson  must  be  taught  and  negroes  must  be 
lynched  —  lynching  takes  place.  If  they  think  that  there  is 
no  particular  need  for  lynching  and  the  courts  may  act  in  a 
given  case  —  the  courts  act.  The  white  people  can  put  down 
lynchings  and  curb  riotings  whenever  and  wherever  they  may 
make  up  their  minds  to  do  so. 

Those  lynchings  and  riots  are  a  fearful  strain  on  the  nerves 
of  the  colored  people.  No  one  is  safe  when  the  mob  starts 
out  on  its  bloody  work.  Innocent  people,  who  had  not  even 
heard  that  a  crime  had  been  committed  and  who  were  not 
suspecting  the  existence  of  the  mob  and  by  mere  chance 
came  within  its  sphere  of  operation,  have  been  done  to 
the  death. 

The  lynchings  in  Statesboro1,  Georgia,  on  the  16th  and 
17th  of  August,  1904,  show  order  and  method  in  the  per 
formance  —  they  were  directed  by  a  leading  mind.  A  murder 
had  been  committed.  Two  negroes  were  condemned  to 
death.  Others  were  under  arrest  in  jail  awaiting  trial.  The 
judge  congratulates  the  community  on  its  respect  for  law 
16 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

and  order.  All  was  quiet  the  night  before.  All  is  quiet 
in  the  morning.  But  suddenly  the  mob  appears,  the  two 
negroes  convicted  are  seized  and  burned  alive  at  the  stake. 
There  were  guards  on  hand ;  they  had  guns,  but  no  bullets, 
and  so  were  brushed  aside.  The  negroes  were  taken  from 
the  court  house  —  the  temple  of  justice.  The  judge  and 
others  protested.  But  what  does  a  Georgia  mob  care  for 
judges,  justice,  or  law  ?  Members  of  the  secret  clans  can  get 
on  the  jury  and  save  their  fellows  from  the  penalty  of  the 
law. 

The  affair  is  described  in  part  by  the  following  press  de 
spatch  to  the  New  York  Sun :  "  Men,  as  they  passed  on  the 
street  during  the  evening,  looked  at  each  other  significantly, 
as  men  lately  initiated  into  the  same  mysteries,  but  there  was 
little  said  or  heard  in  public.  .  .  . 

"  There  was  no  effort  of  any  sort  made  on  the  part  of  the 
mob  at  disguise.  Everything  was  done  in  the  broad  open 
daylight,  without  masks  or  other  concealment.  Men  who 
represented  the  wealth  and  the  worth  of  the  town  openly 
joined  in  the  work  of  leading  the  mob.  These  were  the  ones 
who  led  the  rush  on  the  court  house  and  up  the  stairs  to  the 
little  room  in  which  the  prisoners  were  confined.  The  mob, 
with  its  victims  closely  hemmed  in,  then  proceeded  to  the 
place  of  execution.  Everything  had  been  prepared.  The 
stake  was  a  light-wood  stump  about  seven  feet  high.  The 
negroes  were  bound  to  this  by  a  stout  chain.  At  their  feet 
light-wood  knots  were  piled,  and  brushwood  and  splinters 
reached  to  their  waists. 

"  This  done,  a  man  mounted  the  top  of  the  stump  and 
can  after  can  of  kerosene  were  handed  up  to  him.  Probably 
twenty  gallons  were  poured  over  them  in  liberal  quantities 
and  they  were  ready  for  fire.  Without  a  pause  these  prepa 
rations  had  gone  on.  As  they  were  finished  a  man  stepped 
forward  and  applied  the  match.  The  flames  rose  over  the 
negroes  and  they  uttered  a  simultaneous  groan. 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

"  Reed  seemed  to  bear  the  torture  with  fortitude  and  died 
quickly.  Within  three  minutes  he  had  ceased  to  utter  sounds, 
and  the  only  sign  of  life  was  the  convulsive  bending  of  the 
left  arm  at  the  elbow.  This  soon  ceased  and  he  was  burned 
to  a  crisp. 

"  Cato  seemed  to  die  harder.  Long  after  the  life  had  left 
Reed's  body  he  continued  to  utter  cries  and  to  writhe  in  the 
flames,  which  seemed  to  have  less  play  at  him  than  Reed. 
Finally  one  of  the  mob  leaned  over  and  with  a  bludgeon 
smashed  Cato's  head  open  and  he  seemed  to  give  up  the  ghost. 
His  body  then  turned  and  took  a  horizontal  position  in  the 
fire  and  slowly  burned  to  a  crisp  and  then  to  ashes."" 

After  its  work,  the  mob  dispersed.  The  town  was  again 
quiet  until  the  next  dav,  when  the  mob  suddenly  renewed  its 
work  and  lynched  three  more  negroes. 

A  special  despatch  to  the  New  York  World  says  :  "  *  Regu 
lators  "  are  riding  Bullock  County  ;  one  unidentified  negro 
has  been  riddled  with  bullets,  two  others  perhaps  fatally  shot, 
and  everywhere  negroes  are  being  unmercifully  whipped  by 
the  bands. 

"  An  absolute  reign  of  terror  exists  throughout  the  coun 
try.  A  crowd  passed  the  house  of  Albert  Roberts,  an  old 
negro,  living  near  Register,  and  fired  a  broadside  into  it. 
The  old  negro,  a  thoroughly  peaceable  man,  was  mortally 
wounded,  and  his  seventeen -year-old  son,  Raymond,  was 
struck  by  several  bullets.  The  negro  was  seventy-odd  years 
of  age.  .  .  . 

"  Wild  spirits  from  surrounding  counties  have  flocked  to 
Statesboro'  and  are  aiding  in  the  whipping  and  assaulting  of 
the  inoffensive  negroes.  .  .  . 

"  The  unidentified  body  of  a  negro  was  found  lying  by  the 
roadside  riddled  with  bullets  eight  miles  from  here.  It  was 
at  first  believed  to  be  that  of  Handy  Bell,  but  men  who 
know  him  say  that  it  was  not  he/1 

The  World  editorially  says  : 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"  The  burning  of  negroes  by  a  mob  at  Statesboro',  Georgia, 
yesterday,  was  one  of  the  most  barbarous  and  wanton  crimes 
ever  committed  in  the  name  of  lynch  law. 

"  The  victims  had  been  convicted  of  murder,  after  a  prompt 
and  fair  trial,  and  had  been  sentenced  to  be  hanged  on  Sep 
tember  9th.  So  that  the  usual  excuse  of  uncertain  or  delayed 
legal  justice  was  not  present.  Yet  the  mob  'overpowered 
the  militia '  —  without  a  shot  having  been  fired,  apparently  — 
and  took  the  condemned  prisoners  to  the  woods  and  burned 
them  at  the  stake.  If  '  Darkest  Africa '  is  any  blacker  than 
this,  travellers  have  failed  to  report  it.  Even  the  savages1 
rude  forms  of  justice  are  respected." 

The  Southern  leaders  and  their  apologists  are  accustomed 
to  justify  lynchings  on  the  ground  of  the  protection  of 
womanhood.  Whenever  they  speak  in  public,  in  Congress 
or  elsewhere,  the  blood  of  negroes  lynched  is  spattered  on  the 
head  of  womanhood.  To  push  womanhood  to  the  front  and 
make  it  bear  the  brunt  of  barbarous  crimes  committed  on 
the  negroes  from  "  stark  blood-lust  overwhelming  the  appeal 
to  reason,"  which  is  absolutely  true  of  the  great  majority  of 
lynchings,  is  unwise  and  merits  the  condemnation  of  chivalric 
manhood.  Negroes  have  been  lynched  in  the  South  for  every 
crime ;  and  they  have  been  lynched  when  no  crime  whatever 
has  been  charged.  The  negro  man,  the  woman,  the  youth 
fourteen  years  of  age,  the  child  three  years  of  age,  the  babe  in 
the  mother's  arms  who  could  not  lisp  the  word  "  mamma," 
have  been  the  victims  of  the  lynching  mobs. 

The  records  of  lynchings  kept  by  the  Chicago  Tribune,  a 
reliable  authority,  show  that  only  two  or  three  out  of  every 
ten  colored  persons  lynched  are  even  charged  with  the  name 
less  offence.  It  has  been  proved  that  some  of  those  charged 
with  the  crime  were  innocent.  In  a  particular  instance  a 
white  man  who  killed  his  wife  while  in  a  passion  charged 
one  of  the  negroes  who  worked  on  his  place  with  having 
assaulted  and  murdered  his  wife.  And  this  white  man 

244 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

headed  the  mob  which  lynched  the  negro.     He  made  a  full 
confession  on  his  death-bed  of  the  negro's  innocence. 

Riotings  and  lynchings  have  become  dominant  features  in 
Southern  life  and  their  reflex  influence  has  caused  the  enact 
ment  of  bloody  deeds  in  a  few  Northern  communities.  It 
does  not  help  matters  to  say  that  in  Illinois,  Kansas,  or 
Delaware  a  mob  can  burn  a  negro  at  the  stake  with  all  the 
cruelties  of  a  Georgia,  Mississippi,  or  Texas  mob.  It  is  due 
to  Southern  example ;  and  it  has  been  proved  that  men  from 
the  South  have  been  the  leaders  of  Northern  mobs.  It  is 
also  true  that  many  Southern  men  residing  in  the  North, 
and  also  visiting  Southerners,  seize  every  opportunity  to 
discredit  the  colored  man  and  inflame  passions  against 
him. 

Senator  Tillman,  while  on  a  visit  North,  referring  to  the 
violence  committed  by  a  Northern  mob,  said :  "  I  see  you  are 
learning  how  to  kill  and  burn  '  niggers.1  That 's  right ;  let 
the  good  work  go  on.  Keep  it  up;  you  are  getting  some 
sense."  Other  Southerners,  through  the  press  and  in  addresses, 
have  made  statements  calculated  to  inflame  certain  elements, 
and  doubtless  have  caused  much  mischief.  The  good  people 
of  the  North  can  and  should  call  a  halt  to  those  Southerners 
who  are  seeking  to  create  strife  between  the  races  in  the 
North.  The  "  strikes"  among  a  few  school  children  against 
colored  teachers  or  pupils  are  due  to  the  barbarous  teachings 
of  these  Southern  leaders. 

The  truth  remains,  however,  that  lynch-law  does  not 
dominate  any  Northern  state.  It  does  dominate  Southern 
states.  It  has  become  a  part  of  Southern  civilization  and  is 
publicly  defended  by  many  leading  Southern  men.  The 
ISKjrthern  man  in  public  life  who  should  advocate  lynching 
would  be  disgraced.  The  Southern  men  who  defend  or 
endorse  it,  like  Tillman,  Carmack,  Vardaman,  Richardson, 
Graves,  and  Money,  are  honored  in  public  life  and  kept  in 
high  places. 

245 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

To  indicate  how  general  lynchings  have  become  in  the 
South,  and  to  emphasize,  if  possible,  the  infamy  of  it,  the 
following  cases  may  be  cited :  At  Carrollton,  Louisiana, 
a  negro  man  and  two  women  were  lynched :  they  were  sus 
pected  of  being  implicated  in  a  murder.  In  Smith  County, 
Mississippi,  four  negro  men  and  one  woman  were  lynched,  and 
eight  or  ten  badly  beaten,  and  most  of  the  negroes  ordered 
to  leave :  they  were  suspected  of  wounding  two  white  men. 
In  Mississippi,  a  negro  woman  was  lynched ;  "  the  mob 
visited  the  woman's  house  and  after  tying  her  hands  behind 
her,  took  her  to  the  bridge  over  Lick  Creek.  Here  she  was 
shot  through  the  head  and  her  lifeless  body  was  thrown  into 
the  stream " :  her  offence  was  that  her  brother  was  charged 
with  stealing  a  pocket-book  and  she  could  not  tell  the  mob 
of  his  whereabouts,  and  so  was  lynched. 

In  Louisiana,  a  young  negro  was  lynched  because  he 
could  not  tell  the  whereabouts  of  his  brother,  who  was 
charged  with  theft.  At  Lewisburg,  Tennessee,  a  negro  was 
lynched  in  the  court-house  yard  :  he  was  suspected  of  murder. 
In  St.  James  Parish,  Louisiana,  a  negro  charged  with  murder 
was  burned  at  the  stake.  At  Florence,  Alabama,  a  negro 
was  lynched  by  being  "  hamstrung,  hung  up  by  the  heels  like 
a  hog,  and  allowed  slowly  to  bleed  to  death  "  :  his  offence  was 
that  he  had  protested  loudly  against  the  killing  of  innocent 
negroes.  At  or  near  Tuscombia,  Alabama,  three  negroes 
were  lynched,  because  one  had  resisted  arrest. 

In  South  Carolina,  a  negro  man  and  wife  were  intercepted 
while  on  the  way  to  Abbeville  jail,  taken  from  the  sheriff,  and 
hanged  on  a  bridge,  and  their  bodies  riddled  with  bullets : 
they  were  suspected  of  murder.  At  Langley,  South  Carolina, 
two  negroes  who  had  been  wounded  in  a  fight  in  the  "  Jim 
Crow  "  car  set  apart  for  colored  people,  and  which  had  been 
invaded  by  whites,  and  whom  the  doctor  said  could  not 
possibly  live,  were  taken  from  the  jail  and  lynched.  At 
Newbern,  Tennessee,  two  negroes  were  lynched  :  they  were 

246 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

suspected  of  murder.  At  Memphis,  Tennessee,  four  negroes 
were  lynched  for  starting  a  grocery  store,  in  competition  with 
a  white  man,  in  a  colored  settlement. 

At  Joplin,  Missouri,  several  negroes  were  lynched,  a  number 
of  their  homes  were  burned,  and  over  a  thousand  were  driven 
out  in  one  day.  The  home  of  postmaster  Baker,  of  South 
Carolina,  was  surrounded  at  night ;  oil  was  poured  on  the 
house  and  it  was  set  on  fire.  When  the  family  attempted  to 
escape,  the  mob  opened  fire  on  them.  Mr.  Baker  was  killed ; 
his  young  babe  in  his  arms  was  killed;  his  wife  and  two 
daughters  and  a  son  were  also  shot.  His  only  offence  was 
that  he  was  a  negro  who  held  a  Federal  office.  In  Louisiana, 
a  leading  negro  minister  was  lynched  because  he  advised 
the  colored  people  to  become  the  owners  of  their  own  homes 
and  farms.  In  the  same  state,  near  Girard,  a  negro  was 
lynched ;  the  only  offence  that  he  was  charged  with  was  the 
stealing  of  a  bottle  of  "  pop." 

At  Hodenville,  Kentucky,  a  negro  was  lynched  on  the 
court-house  steps :  he  was  charged  with  causing  a  white 
boy  to  steal.  At  Brookside,  Alabama,  three  white  men  shot 
down  an  inoffensive  negro  just  for  fun  —  one  saying,  "  Watch 
the  '  coon '  jump."  The  negro  was  shot  dead. 

In  one  case  a  young  white  girl  was  made  the  executioner. 
She  put  the  rope  around  the  victim's  neck  ;  he  was  then 
placed  on  the  back  of  a  horse ;  the  end  of  the  rope  was 
thrown  over  the  limb  of  a  tree,  and  the  little  girl  took 
hold  of  the  bridle  of  the  horse  and  led  it  away,  leaving 
the  victim  hanging.  The  body  was  then  riddled  with  bul 
lets.  Where  else  in  civilization  could  such  a  spectacle  be 
witnessed  ? 

At  Beach  Still,  Georgia,  the  negroes  were  having  a  dance, 
when  the  hall  was  fired  upon  by  white  men  ;  two  negroes 
were  killed,  and  nine  wounded,  including  three  women.  In 
Gunterville,  Alabama,  a  negro  was  lynched ;  the  charge  was 
barn-burning.  In  South  Carolina  five  negroes  were  lynched : 

247 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

they  were  suspected  of  having  burned  a  barn.     It  was  after 
wards  proven  that  they  were  innocent. 

The  Boston  Journal  cites  this  case :  "  Viewed  from  any 
standpoint  the  lynching  of  negro  Robert  White  in  Alabama 
was  a  cowardly  murder.  A  white  man  had  killed  all  of 
White's  chickens.  This  resulted  in  a  row  and  shots  were 
exchanged.  No  white  participant  in  the  affair  was  troubled, 
but  the  negro  was  arrested,  and  while  in  the  hands  of  an 
officer,  going  to  jail,  he  was  seized  by  a  mob  of  white  men 
and  put  to  death.  Every  man  in  that  mob  was  nothing  less 
than  a  murderer  and  should  be  so  treated ;  but  the  victim 
was  only  a  '  nigger '  who  had  no  rights  which  white  folks  of 
that  sort  respect,  and  the  murderer  will  go  scot  free." 

In  Salisbury,  North  Carolina,  two  negro  boys  were  taken 
from  the  jail  and  lynched  :  they  were  suspected  of  murder. 

Pierce  City,  Missouri,  shows  this  record :  "  For  nearly 
fifteen  hours  to-day  this  town  of  3,000  people  has  been  in 
the  hands  of  a  mob  of  armed  men,  determined  to  drive  out 
every  negro.  In  addition  to  the  lynching  last  night  of 
William  Godley,  accused  falsely,  it  is  believed,  of  murder, 
and  the  shooting  of  his  grandfather,  French  Godley,  the  mob 
to-day  burned  Peter  Hampton,  an  aged  negro,  alive  in  his 
home,  set  the  torch  to  the  houses  of  five  blacks  and  with  the 
aid  of  state  militia  rifles,  stolen  from  the  local  company's 
arsenal,  drove  dozens  of  negroes  from  town.  After  noon  the 
excitement  died  down,  the  mob  gradually  dispersing,  more 
from  lack  of  negroes  upon  whom  to  wreak  their  hatred  than 
from  any  other  cause.  Many  of  the  negroes  who  fled  the 
city  are  hiding  in  the  surrounding  woods,  while  others  have 
gone  greater  distances  in  seeking  safety." 

A  colored  camp-meeting  in  Mississippi  was  raided  by 
whites ;  thirty  colored  people  engaged  in  the  worship  of  God 
were  killed,  including  the  pastor,  his  wife,  a  daughter  twelve 
years  of  age,  his  younger  child  three  years  of  age,  and  a 
minister  who  was  assisting  in  the  meetings.  The  whites  in- 

248 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

terfered  with  the  meeting.  The  killing  was  wanton ;  there 
were  no  charges  against  any  of  the  colored  people. 

In  South  Carolina  a  number  of  colored  men  appeared  at 
the  polls  to  vote,  and  a  riot  was  started.  Seven  of  the  colored 
men  were  captured  and  made  to  stand  up  on  a  log,  and  were 
there  shot  to  death :  their  offence  was  that  they  had  at 
tempted  to  vote.  The  white  man  who  was  running  for 
Congress  and  for  whom  they  wanted  to  vote  was  also  shot. 
In  Arkansas,  fifteen  negroes  were  lynched  as  a  result  of  a 
dispute  in  which  a  colored  man  doubted  a  white  man's 
word  over  a  grocery  bill. 

The  New  York  World)  reviewing  the  crimes  of  1901,  says  : 
u  Lynchings  show  one  hundred  and  seven  cases  in  the  South, 
nil  colored  .  .  .  Race  hatred  is  the  cause  of  many  crimes  .  .  . 
Thus  ten  persons  were  killed  for  no  other  cause  than  race 
prejudice  in  the  South  last  year.11  Many  of  those  lynched 
for  "  cause  "  were  innocent  of  crime. 

The  New  York  Journal  describes  a  case  in  these  words  : 
"  Call  to  your  mind  the  picture  of  the  negro,  with  a  rope 
hanging  around  his  neck,  escaping  from  the  mob  the  other 
day  and  running  to  the  sheriff  with  his  face  battered  in.  The 
mob  had  wanted  to  lynch  him  because  he  would  not  confess 
that  some  one  else  was  guilty  of  arson."  The  Journal,  re 
ferring  to  another  case,  said  :  "  Negroes  are  lynched  for  being 
born  into  the  world.1'1 

The  Nashville  (Tennessee)  American  gives  an  account  of  a 
lynching  in  Mississippi  as  follows  :  "But  there  was  a  lynching 
in  that  state  that  for  fiendish  brutality  has  not  yet  been  sur 
passed,  even  when  the  victims  have  been  roasted  at  the  stake. 
It  occurred  at  Doddsville,  recently,  and  these  are  the  circum 
stances  as  related  by  local  newspapers :  Luther  Holbert,  a 
negro,  had  a  quarrel  with  a  white  man  and,  following  the 
usual  Mississippi  method,  they  exchanged  shots,  the  negro 
escaping  and  the  white  man  being  killed.  The  negro, 
knowing  the  penalty  for  killing  a  white  man  in  that  section, 

249 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

fled,  of  course,  accompanied  by  his  wife,  who  had  had  no 
part  in  the  quarrel.  They  were  captured  by  the  mob  and 
this  is  what  was  done  to  them,  according  to  the  statement  of 
an  eye-witness  in  the  Vicksburg  Herald. 

"  '  When  the  two  negroes  were  captured  they  were  tied  to 
trees,  and  while  the  funeral  pyres  were  being  prepared  they 
were  forced  to  suffer  the  most  fiendish  tortures.  The  blacks 
were  forced  to  hold  out  their  hands  while  one  finger  at  a  time 
was  chopped  off.  The  fingers  were  distributed  as  souvenirs. 
The  ears  of  the  murderers  were  cut  off.  Holbert  was 
severely  beaten,  his  skull  was  fractured,  and  one  of  his  eyes, 
knocked  out  with  a  stick,  hung  by  a  shred  from  the  socket. 
Neither  the  man  nor  the  woman  begged  for  mercy,  nor  made 
a  groan  or  plea.  When  the  executioners  came  forward  to 
lop  off  fingers,  Holbert  extended  his  hand  without  being 
asked.  The  most  excruciating  form  of  punishment  consisted 
in  the  use  of  a  large  corkscrew  in  the  hands  of  one  of  the 
mob.  This  instrument  was  bored  into  the  flesh  of  the  man 
and  the  woman,  in  the  arms,  legs,  and  body,  and  pulled  out, 
the  spiral  tearing  out  big  pieces  of  raw,  quivering  flesh  every 
time  it  was  withdrawn. 

"  '  After  these  tortures  the  mutilated  bodies  were  burned. 
Had  this  negro  outraged  a  white  woman  ?  Oh,  no  ;  he  had 
merely  killed  a  white  man  who  was  shooting  at  him.  His 
wife  had  committed  no  crime,  but  simply  fled  with  her  hus 
band.  Yet  she  was  made  to  share  his  fate,  and  with  him  to 
suffer  the  most  cruel  and  brutal  tortures  the  devilish  in 
genuity  of  the  degraded  savages  could  devise."* "" 

During  the  last  ten  years  lynchings  have  averaged  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty  a  year.  Many  of  the  victims  were  known  to 
be  innocent  at  the  time,  but  when  the  mob  starts  out  it  must 
have  blood,  whether  the  victims  are  guilty  or  innocent. 
Numerous  riots  and  expulsions  have  also  taken  place. 

A  feature  in  connection  herewith,  worthy  of  note,  is  that 
the  coroner's  jury,  impanelled  to  uphold  the  law,  as  a  rule 

250 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

renders  the  stereotyped  verdict  that  "  The  party  or  parties 
came  to  their  death  at  the  hands  of  persons  unknown.'1  And 
this  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  the  press  publishes  the  names 
of  the  leaders  of  the  mob,  and  of  the  man  who  fires  the  first 
shot  or  lights  the  fire  to  burn  the  victim.  Sometimes  the 
jury  treats  the  matter  as  a  joke ;  in  one  case  they  rendered 
the  verdict  that  "  the  deceased  came  to  his  death  by  swinging 
in  the  air."  Again,  that  "  the  deceased  came  to  his  death  by 
taking  too  great  a  bite  of  hemp  rope."  At  other  times  their 
verdict  is  a  direct  incentive  to  crime ;  as  for  instance  this : 
"  We  do  not  know  who  killed  the  deceased,  but  we  con 
gratulate  the  parties  on  their  work."  Members  of  the  mobs 
have  also  served  on  the  coroner's  jury.  A  grand  jury  re 
turned  this  verdict  in  Louisiana :  "  The  men  who  par 
ticipated  in  the  burning  were  among  the  best  citizens  of  the 
county,  and  nothing  but  a  desire  to  protect  those  who  are 
nearest  and  dearest  to  them  would  move  them  to  undertake 
such  measures."  As  to  the  savagery  of  the  tortures  inflicted 
upon  the  victims,  these  additional  facts  may  be  given  :  Red- 
hot  iron  has  been  used  to  burn  the  tongue  from  the  mouth  ;  to 
burn  the  flesh  from  the  breast  and  back  ;  to  burn  out  the  eyes  ; 
to  burn  the  flesh  from  the  arms  and  legs  ;  to  burn  off  the  ears 
and  nose.  The  heart  and  the  liver  have  been  removed  from 
the  body  and  cut  into  small  pieces  and  sold  as  souvenirs  of 
the  lynching.  Repeatedly,  events  have  occurred  which  showed 
that  the  negroes  who  were  lynched  were  entirely  innocent. 

Press  despatches  gave  the  following  case  :  "  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  March  2,  1904.  After  taking  a  prominent 
part  in  lynching  three  negroes,  section-foreman  Jones,  of  the 
Atlantic  Coast  line,  to-day  confessed  to  the  murder  of  his 
wife,  for  which  the  innocent  men  were  mobbed. 

"  One  morning  during  the  early  part  of  May,  1902,  the  body 
of  Mrs.  Jones  was  found  in  the  dog  house,  in  the  rear  of  her 
yard,  at  Ravenel.  Her  throat  was  cut  from  ear  to  ear  and 
her  head  crushed  in. 

251 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"The  news  of  the  terrible  crime  soon  spread  over  Coileton 
county  and  armed  parties  were  organized  and  the  woods  were 
scoured  for  negroes,  it  having  been  stated  that  three  negro 
men  were  seen  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Jones  house  the  morning 
of  the  tragedy.  The  description  of  the  negroes  corresponded 
with  that  of  Jim  Black,  James  Ford,  and  Thomas  Fryer,  who 
had  been  in  the  neighborhood,  but  who  had  suddenly  dis 
appeared. 

"After  searching  for  the  negroes  for  a  week  they  were 
arrested,  taken  to  the  scene  of  the  crime,  and  swung  to  the 
limbs  of  trees.  Jones  was  present  and  was  given  the  oppor 
tunity  of  firing  the  first  shots  into  their  bodies. 

"  Several  weeks  ago  section-foreman  Jones  was  taken  sick, 
and  Dr.  Willis  was  called  in  to  treat  him  ;  but  he  had  passed 
all  medical  aid,  for  the  disease  with  which  he  was  afflicted  had 
wrecked  his  constitution,  and  he  began  to  sink.  Realizing 
that  he  was  about  to  die,  Jones  confessed  to  killing  his  wife. 

" '  I  know  I  am  going  to  die,  but  I  can't  die  until  I  tell  all 
about  killing  my  wife,1  he  said  to  his  physician.  He  then 
recited  the  details  of  the  crime,  declaring  that  he  killed  his 
wife  in  a  moment  of  passion  that  morning  in  May  before  he 
left  for  his  work.  He  then  carried  the  body  from  the  house 
and  dumped  it  into  the  dog  house,  where  it  was  found  by  his 
little  daughter  a  few  hours  afterward.  Immediately  after 
making  the  confession  he  expired." 

The  first  thought  that  may  impress  the  average  mind  from 
these  recitals  is  that  the  negroes  are  not  the  only,  or  the  chief, 
or  the  worst  criminals  in  the  South.  Colored  criminals  may 
outnumber  white  criminals  in  the  penal  institutions,  but  they 
may  not  be  numerically  stronger  outside  the  penitentiary. 
Practically  all  colored  criminals,  and  many  not  criminals  go 
to  the  penitentiary,  but  many  white  criminals  go  to  Canada, 
or  into  political  offices,  or  become  "  guards "  or  "  bosses." 
Crime  has  increased  among  the  colored  people  since  emanci 
pation,  but  it  should  be  remembered  that  there  are  nearly 

252 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

three  times  as  many  colored  people  now  as  were  emancipated. 
Crime  has  also  increased  among  the  whites.  Forty  years  ago 
there  were  practically  no  whites  in  penitentiaries  in  the  South, 
but  now  there  are  thousands  ;  besides,  there  are  hundreds  of 
white  females  in  prison,  —  a  condition  unheard  of  before  the 
War  of  the  Rebellion.  One  of  the  greatest  scandals  of  recent 
times  in  the  South  was  the  brutal  flogging  of  a  white  woman 
in  a  prison  in  Georgia. 

Another  thought  that  will  suggest  itself  is :  Why  are  these 
inhumanities  permitted  to  exist  in  Christian,  civilized  com 
munities  ?  The  answer  is :  It  is  because  of  the  virus  of 
slavery  in  the  brain  of  the  whites,  called  into  activity  by  the 
leaders  to  compass  the  subjugation  of  the  colored  race.  It  is 
a  part  of  a  carefully  evolved  plan  by  the  leaders.  It  is  de 
signed  to  put  the  race  under  the  contempt  of  the  whites  and 
to  destroy  its  morale. 

Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
shows  that  the  reign  of  terror  and  lynchings  are  in  defence 
neither  of  law  nor  of  chastity,  but  "  It  is  in  defence  of  caste." 
And  he  further  says :  "  What  the  whole  nation  needs  is 
to  deal  with  the  negro  race  no  longer  as  outcasts,  but  simply 
as  men  and  women. "  The  Boston  Herald  says  :  "  In  all  the 
years  since  the  war  it  is  probable  that  fifty  negroes  have  been 
murdered  by  white  men  for  every  white  man  murdered  by 
negroes,  and  a  hundred  negro  women  have  been  debauched 
by  white  men  for  every  white  woman  outraged  by  a  negro.11 

Mies  Caroline  Pemberton,  of  one  of  the  first  families  of 
Philadelphia,  in  a  communication  to  the  Public  Ledger  of 
that  city,  says :  "  In  the  first  place,  the  crime  of  assault  is 
not  peculiar  to  the  negro  race.  It  is  practically  unknown  in 
the  West  Indies,  in  South  Africa,  and  South  America,  and 
was  never  charged  against  the  Southern  negro  until  political 
and  social  conditions  ripened  in  the  minds  of  Southern  whites 
a  frantic  desire  to  stigmatize  the  whole  negro  race  as  unworthy 
to  possess  the  rights  of  men.  The  crime  of  assault  so  fre- 

253 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

quently  charged  against  the  negro  as  a  race  is  part  of  the 
political  conspiracy  to  deprive  him  of  his  legal  rights.  It 
has  been  proved  over  and  over  again  that  only  a  very  small 
proportion  of  negroes  who  are  lynched  in  the  South  are  even 
charged  with  this  crime ;  and  of  those  who  are  charged  with 
it,  it  is  safe  to  conclude  that  a  fair  proportion  is  innocent.  I 
reach  this  last  conclusion  from  knowledge  of  the  fact  that 
the  charge  is  often  made  against  men  of  all  races  under  con 
ditions  that  make  their  comparative  innocence  almost  a  fore 
gone  conclusion. 

"  In  regard  to  negro  criminality,  let  me  assure  you  that  I 
speak  from  personal  experience  when  I  assert  that  the  average 
working  negro  is  as  free  from  pronounced  criminal  tendencies 
as  the  white  man  of  the  same  class.  I  have  for  years  employed 
colored  people  in  my  own  household,  and  found  them  both 
trustworthy  and  efficient.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  travelled  over  the  muddy  roads  of  Eastern  Virginia 
for  many  miles,  and  through  the  Black  Belt  of  Alabama  for 
several  days,  with  no  other  protector  in  each  case  than  a  negro 
driver,  and  with  no  thought  of  harm  coming  to  me.  I  have 
visited  colored  schools  in  the  South,  taught  by  white  Northern 
women  whose  sole  protectors  were  their  black  students  and 
a  few  colored  instructors.  The  only  people  these  gentle 
women  feared  were  the  white  men  of  the  neighborhood, 
whose  threats  against  the  school  had  at  one  time  caused  them 
grave  anxiety.  The  loyal  devotion  of  the  blacks  to  these 
white  women  was  something  beautiful  to  see,  and  was  proof 
enough  that  the  faithful  character  of  the  negro  has  not 
changed  since  slavery ." 

Mr.  James  S.  Stemons,  in  the  Philadelphia  Record,  says : 
"  Shame  !  But  who  can  point  to  any  negro  crime  so  loathsome 
as  the  assault  and  murder  by  four  white  men  of  Jennie  Bos- 
schieter,  in  Paterson,  New  Jersey,  four  years  ago ;  or  as  that 
of  the  two  men  in  Wheeling,  West  Virginia,  who,  two  years 
ago,  took  a  seventeen-year-old  girl  from  her  escort  at  the  point 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

of  a  pistol,  assaulted  and  murdered  her,  and  threw  her  body 
into  the  Ohio  River ;  of  the  nine  men  who  a  few  days  ago 
assaulted  a  young  girl  in  this  city ;  of  the  two  brothers  who 
assaulted  a  five-year-old  child ;  or  that  of  the  more  than  a 
dozen  men  who  have  within  the  past  four  years  assaulted,  in 
some  cases  at  the  point  of  a  pistol,  their  own  daughters, 
nieces,  and  cousins  ?  " 

All  these  cases  were  committed  by  white  men.  And  it 
may  be  noted  here  that  the  Confederate  Congress,  in  resolu 
tions  formally  adopted  in  October,  1862,  made  this  same  charge 
against  the  soldiers  of  the  Union  army.  It  was  unjustly 
pressed  then ;  it  is  unjustly  pressed  now,  against  the  colored 
people.  No  large  body  of  people  should  be  held  responsible 
for  the  acts  of  a  few  brutal  individuals.  All  races  have 
developed  brutal  men.  But  neither  in  the  North  nor  in  the 
South  has  the  colored  race  developed  the  most  elusive,  danger 
ous,  and  brutal  criminals. 

The  colored  race  has  produced  no  criminals  or  desperadoes 
of  heartless  cruelty  like  the  James  brothers ;  or  the  man 
Holmes,  who  killed  so  many  people,  including  several  wives 
and  his  own  children,  that  he  did  not  keep  trace  of  them  ;  or 
the  Chicago  boy  bandits ;  or  the  trained  nurse  who  wiped  out 
several  families  by  poisoning ;  or  some  of  the  guards  and 
officials  of  the  stockades  or  penitentiaries  and  the  leaders  of 
the  lynching  mobs. 

The  Chicago  Chronicle,  referring  to  an  editorial  in  the 
Atlanta  News,  edited  by  Mr.  John  Temple  Graves,  in  which 
he  advocates  the  systematic  establishment  of  a  reign  of  terror 
and  lynching,  says  : 

"  In  his  leading  editorial  last  Friday  he  advocates  not  only 
lynching,  but  a  revival  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan.  In  that 
editorial  he  declares  that  '  neither  law  nor  statutes,  nor 
public  opinion,  nor  armed  forces,  nor  Federal  courts,  nor  any 
other  courts  will  prevent  the  stern  expression  of  the  popular 
horror '  of  crime  when  it  is  committed  by  a  negro  —  expression 

255 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

by  burning  at  the  stake  the  negro  suspected  of  the  crime 
without  trial  or  proof  of  any  kind. 

"  This  man  threatens  to  revive  the  masked  night-riding 
murderers  if  an  attempt  is  made  to  invoke  national  law  and 
courts  for  the  protection  not  only  of  negroes  but  for  the 
preservation  of  Southern  society  from  lapsing  into  that  sav 
agery  and  anarchy  into  which  by  admission  of  the  Governor 
of  Georgia  it  has  almost  fallen  in  that  state  already." 

In  order  to  accomplish  the  subjugation  of  the  colored  race 
and  the  destruction  of  its  citizenship,  these  leaders  would 
plunge  the  South  into  a  state  of  anarchy. 

For  forty  years  the  negro  has  been  harassed  and  harried  on 
the  right  and  on  the  left,  in  front  and  behind.  He  has  been 
on  the  run,  and  has  not  had  a  moment  to  pause  and  catch  his 
breath  or  take  his  bearings.  He  has  been,  and  is,  fearfully 
handicapped.  Some  of  the  whites  of  the  South  have  been 
kind,  friendly,  and  helpful  to  him  ;  many  have  sympathized 
with  him  in  his  tribulations  and  woes,  but  lacked  the  courage 
to  manifest  it ;  and  a  few  have  spoken  out  boldly  against  the 
outrages  and  outlawry  of  which  he  has  been  the  victim.  But 
the  leaders  and  the  organized  South  have  allowed  him  no 
quarter,  shown  him  no  mercy. 

The  proscriptions  and  oppressions  which  are  laid  on  the 
colored  man  either  North  or  South  on  the  ground  of  color 
alone  have  made  him  extremely  sensitive  to  any  infraction 
of  his  rights  and  liberty.  And  in  desperation  he  has  at  times 
struck  back  at  the  oppressor,  although  the  lyncher's  noose  was 
dangling  in  his  face. 

Much  of  the  violence  of  which  he  is  guilty,  especially  in 
the  North,  is  due  to  resentment  that  certain  elements  in  the 
North  should  seek  to  outrage  him  simply  because  of  his 
color.  A  community  which  denies  a  man  a  fair  chance  to 
earn  an  honest  living  because  of  his  color,  thus  driving  him 
into  idleness,  is  in  a  manner  responsible  for  the  increase  of 
its  criminals. 

256 


THE    NEGRO    AND    THE    LAW 

Every  municipal  or  state  law  bearing  on  him  enacted  in 
the  South  since  his  emancipation  has  been  to  degrade, 
ostracize,  and  alienate  him,  and  deprive  him  of  his  liberty,  or 
restrict  him  in  the  realization  of  his  dreams  of  freedom.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  a  cheering  truth  that  every  law  passed 
in  the  North  touching  the  negro  has  been  to  confirm  and 
make  secure  his  freedom,  protect  his  civil  rights,  guarantee 
his  ballot,  and  put  him  on  the  same  footing  with  all  other 
citizens  before  the  law. 

In  the  passage  of  such  laws  in  the  North,  Democrats  and 
members  of  other  political  parties  have  nobly  aided  the 
Republicans  in  achieving  the  security  and  firm  establish 
ment  of  the  liberty  and  rights  of  the  colored  citizen. 

In  the  South,  in  the  state  of  Texas,  a  colored  man  who  had 
been  carrying  the  mail  to  and  fro  from  the  State  House  to 
the  post-office  for  fifteen  years  was  discharged  under  the 
new  order  of  things,  which  prohibits  the  negro  from  being 
recognized  in  any  public  or  semi-public  relation  in  the  South. 
Such  repression  is  general.  The  Richmond,  Virginia,  city 
council  passed  a  resolution  prohibiting  the  negro  from  being 
employed  in  any  position  around  the  City  Hall.  The  brother 
hood  of  locomotive  and  steamboat  firemen  of  the  South  at 
their  meeting  at  Norfolk,  Virginia,  passed  resolutions  protest 
ing  against  the  employment  of  negroes  as  firemen  on  loco 
motives  or  steamboats.  Other  labor  organizations  have 
placed  the  boycott  on  him.  He  is  being  driven  to  the  wall. 
The  increase  of  crime  is  coincident  with  the  increase  of 
oppression  and  outlawry.  The  organized  South  is  respon 
sible  for  the  growth  in  crime. 

How  far  —  how  long  —  are  these  things  to  go  on  ? 

Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox  has  published  in  the  New  York 
Journal,  a  poem  which,  in  part,  runs  as  follows :  — 

"  Out  of  the  wilderness,  out  of  the  night, 

Has  the  black  man  crawled  to  the  dawn  of  light ; 
Beaten  by  lashes  and  bound  by  chains, 

n  257 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

A  beast  of  burden  with  soul  and  brains. 

He  has  come  through  sorrow  and  need  and  woe, 

And  the  cry  of  his  heart  is  to  know,  to  know  ! 

"  Red  with  anguish  his  way  has  been. 
This  suffering  brother  of  dusky  skin, 
For  centuries  fettered  and  bound  to  earth. 
Slow  his  unfolding  to  freedom's  birth  — 
Slow  his  rising  from  burden  and  ban 
To  fill  the  stature  of  mortal  man. 
You  must  give  him  wings  ere  you  tell  him  to  fly  — 
You  must  set  the  example  and  bid  him  try ; 
Let  the  white  man  pay  for  the  white  man's  crime  — 
Let  him  work  in  patience  and  bide  God's  time. 

"  Out  of  the  wilderness,  out  of  the  night, 
Has  the  black  man  crawled  to  the  dawn  of  light ; 
He  has  come  through  the  valley  of  great  despair  — 
He  has  borne  what  no  white  man  ever  can  bear  — 
He  has  come  through  sorrow  and  pain  and  woe, 
And  the  cry  of  his  heart  is  to  know,  to  know  !  " 


258 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  RISE   AND   ACHIEVEMENTS 
OF   THE   COLORED   RACE 

PRESIDENT  ALDERMAN  of  Tulane  University, 
New  Orleans,  Louisiana,  a  well-bred,  high-minded,  and 
highly  cultured  Southerner,  who  holds  his  equipoise  even 
in  that  city  which  is  the  storm-centre  of  "  Jim  Crowism,"  in  a 
public  address  said :  "  Progress  is  measured  by  the  distance 
one  has  travelled  as  well  as  to  the  point  one  has  reached." 
He  was  speaking  on  the  race  question.  The  colored  race, 
judged  by  this  standard,  measured  by  this  mete-wand,  may 
confidently  invite  comparison  in  their  forty  years  of  struggles 
and  ascent  in  civilization  with  any  people  in  the  world's 
history. 

Another  Southerner,  the  Right  Reverend  Bishop  Haygood, 
one  of  the  greatest  men,  greatest  in  heart,  greatest  in  brain, 
that  the  South  has  produced,  speaking  of  the  progress  of  the 
colored  race,  said  :  "  It 's  a  marvel.  It  overturns  all  of  our 
preconceived  ideas  about  the  negro.  We  thought  we  knew 
him,  but  we  did  n't.  We  must  in  honesty  confess  that  he  has 
surprised  us  and  taught  us  much  we  did  not  know  and  would 
not  have  believed." 

The  Reverend  A.  B.  Curry,  D.  D.,  of  Memphis,  Tennessee, 
who  at  present  represents  a  small  but  important  class  in 
Southern  life,  but  a  class  like  "  the  mustard  seed "  of  the 
parable,  that  will  certainly  multiply  and  predominate  as  the 
South  shall  take  the  sober  second  thought,  preached  a  sermon 
in  his  home  city  on  the  27th  of  November,  1904,  in  which  he 
pays  a  deserved  tribute  to  the  colored  man  and  paints  a  word 
portrait  of  him  which  should  command  consideration  because 
of  its  truthfulness.  The  sermon  was  published  in  the  Mem 
phis  Commercial  Appeal,  and  carries  its  own  commendation 
of  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  minister. 

259 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Dr.  Curry  said  in  part :  "  I  am  not  ashamed  to  say  that  I 
have  a  tender  feeling  in  my  heart  for  the  negro.  I  believe  I 
would  be  an  ingrate  if  I  did  not  have  such  feeling.  My 
helpless  infancy  and  early  childhood  were  watched  over  with 
a  tender  care  and  affection  second  only  to  those  of  the 
mother  who  bore  me,  and  it  was  those  of  my  faithful  negro 
nurse  on  the  old  plantation  home  in  southern  Georgia.  .  .  . 

"  We  criticise  him  and  complain  of  him,  but  we  don't  want 
to  give  him  up.  Let  a  labor  agent  go  through  the  South, 
seeking  to  induce  the  negroes  to  leave  the  country  and  he 
becomes  at  once,  to  say  the  least,  persona  non  grata.  I  have 
known  such  agents  in  some  localities  to  be  fined  and  imprisoned. 
That  means  that  our  country  needs  him.  He  is  the  best 
laborer,  for  the  kind  of  labor  that  needs  to  be  done  in  the 
South,  that  we  have  ever  found.  .  .  . 

"A  year  ago,  when  there  was  a  disagreement  between 
our  steamboat  companies  and  their  negro  roustabouts,  an 
effort  was  made  to  replace  the  latter  with  white  men  ;  but  it 
was  not  successful.  The  white  men  could  not  do  the  work 
satisfactorily  ;  and  when  I  went  up  to  St.  Louis  the  past 
summer  on  the  river,  I  understood  it.  I  do  not  believe  there 
is  the  white  race  living  or  any  other  race,  not  even  the  patient 
Chinamen,  who  either  could  or  would  do  the  work  the  negro 
roustabouts  do,  in  the  way  they  are  required  to  do  it.  The 
negro's  great  muscular-strength,  his  powers  of  endurance,  his 
healthfulness  in  a  Southern  climate,  and  his  docility  of  spirit 
make  him  an  invaluable  factor  in  the  labor  problem  of  the 
South,  and  the  present  material  development  of  the  South  is 
due  in  no  small  measure  to  the  brawn  and  muscle  and  willing 
industry  of  the  negro.  .  .  . 

"  Twenty  white  tramps  come  to  my  door,  begging,  to  one 
negro.  An  able-bodied  negro  is  almost  never  a  beggar.  What 
he  asks,  and  what  the  white  man  owes  him,  is  a  chance  to 
work  along  every  avenue  for  which  his  mind  and  his  hand 
capacitate  him,  with  a  fair  wage  fully  and  promptly  paid.  .  .  . 

260 


ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  THE  COLORED   RACE 

"  There  is  no  more  docile  man,  nor  loyal  friend  than 
the  negro,  when  convinced  of  your  disinterested  love  for 
him. 

"  But  we  are  told  by  some  that  the  game  is  not  worth  the 
candle ;  that  after  all,  the  negro  is  incapable  of  a  high  civili 
zation  and  of  valuable  achievement ;  that  he  is  destitute  of 
the  noble  traits  of  human  nature.  I  cannot  believe  this,  for 
I  remember  when,  during  the  Civil  War,  my  two  oldest 
brothers,  both  still  in  their  teens,  went  to  the  front,  and  my 
father  was  called  away  on  a  similar  mission,  leaving  my 
mother  and  her  little  children  to  the  care  and  protection  of 
the  negro  slaves,  that  sacred  trust  was  kept  with  the  utmost 
fidelity  ;  and  there  were  men  among  them  who,  if  need  arose, 
would  have  laid  down  their  lives  through  devotion  to  their 
trust.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  heard  of  a  negro  man,  who,  after  freedom,  re 
moved  from  his  old  home  in  Virginia  to  Macon,  Georgia. 
There  through  industry  and  thrift  he  amassed  a  nice  amount 
of  property.  Hearing  that  his  old  master  and  mistress  in 
Virginia,  unable  to  adjust  themselves  to  changed  conditions, 
had  become  homeless  and  poor,  he  built  them  a  comfortable 
little  home  in  Macon,  brought  them  to  it,  and  cared  for  them 
till  they  died,  and  then  carried  their  bodies  back  to  the  old 
Virginia  home  for  burial. 

"  When  I  was  in  the  Palace  of  Fine  Arts  in  St.  Louis  this 
summer,  I  saw  a  picture  before  which  I  stood  and  wept.  In 
the  distance  was  a  battle  scene  ;  the  dust  of  tramping  men 
and  horses,  the  smoke  of  cannon  and  rifles  filled  the  air; 
broken  carriages  and  dead  and  dying  men  strewed  the 
ground.  In  the  foreground  was  the  figure  of  a  stalwart 
negro  man,  bearing  in  his  strong  arms  the  form  of  a  fair- 
haired  Anglo-Saxon  youth.  It  was  the  devoted  body  ser 
vant  of  a  young  Southerner,  bearing  the  dead  body  of  his 
young  master  from  the  field  of  carnage,  not  to  pause  or  rest 
till  he  had  delivered  it  to  those  whose  love  for  it  only  sur- 

261 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

passed  his  own  ;  and  underneath  the  picture  were  these 
words:  'Faithful  Unto  Death';  and  there  are  men  before 
me  who  have  seen  the  spirit  of  that  picture  illustrated  on 
more  than  one  field  of  battle. 

"  I  do  not  think  a  race  possessed  of  such  qualities  of  heart, 
capable  of  such  noble,  unselfish  deeds,  is  to  be  despised  among 
the  families  of  the  earth.  There  is  a  place  for  it,  and  a  work 
for  it  to  do,  in  the  world.  Is  it  asked,  what  will  be  the  final 
destiny  of  the  negro  in  America  ?  We  cannot  tell,  but  let 
us  do  our  duty  to  the  poor  man  at  our  gate  in  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  and  leave  results  with  God.  We  need  not  fear  ;  they 
will  be  satisfactory.11 

Mr.  Sarge  Plunkett  of  Georgia,  a  sane  Southerner  on  the 
negro  question,  writing  to  the  Atlanta  Constitution,  says : 
"  No  matter  how  others  may  feel  or  have  felt,  the  negro 
in  the  South  has  been  such  a  surprise  to  me  that  I  am  slow 
to  say  what  he  will  or  will  not  accomplish  ;  I  am  even 
slow  to  say  that  he  is  as  inferior  as  we  have  heard  he  was. 
The  negro  must  lift  himself,  and  while  it  goes  mighty  hard 
with  me  to  acknowledge  it,  he  is  lifting  himself,  and  he  will 
keep  on  lifting  up  and  up  at  every  opportunity.  On  lines  of 
accumulation,  the  negro  has  done  better  than  an  old  timer 
would  have  ever  thought  he  could  do.  I  know  negroes, 
and  we  all  know  negroes,  who  could  fc  buy,'  as  the  saying 
goes,  every  child  of  his  old  master.  And  I  can  tell  you,  as 
a  truth,  that  negroes  who  are  able  to  do  this  that  I  have 
hinted  have  more  prestige,  are  more  respectable  if  you  please, 
than  these  children  I  have  mentioned.  Sit  down  coolly  and 
contemplate  the  negroes  as  they  were  at  the  end  of  our  war 
and  as  they  are  to-day  ;  do  this,  after  laying  aside  the  preju 
dice  that  you  have  and  I  have,  and  I  feel  more  than  a  great 
majority  will  have  to  acknowledge  that  the  negro  is  not  so 
inferior  as  we  thought  he  was. 

"  How  well  can  many  now  living  remember  what  a  picture 
they  made  about  the  time  of  Lee's  surrender ! 

262 


ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  THE  COLORED  RACE 

"  I  admit  that  I  was  fooled  about  their  capacity,  and  I 
know  that  thousands  of  others  were  the  same.  If  we  had 
been  told  then  that  there  would  be  a  black  man  developed 
into  what  we  know  that  Washington  is,  we  would  have 
honestly  thought  it  foolish  and  passed  it  as  a  joke.  When  I 
pass  out  about  the  big  negro  colleges  around  Atlanta  and 
look  upon  the  students  there,  I  am  bound  to  admit  that  they 
are  beyond  anything  that  I  ever  dreamed  they  could  be."" 

And  speaking  of  the  possibilities  of  a  great  foreign  war, 
and  the  availability  of  the  negro  for  service  in  the  United 
States  army,  Mr.  Plimkett  further  urges  :  "  If  we  should  have 
such  a  war  as  is  contemplated,  I  take  it  that  the  negroes  will 
join  our  armies  just  as  white  men  join.  They  will  march 
under  the  same  Hag,  wear  the  same  uniform,  and  are  bound 
by  right  to  be  accorded  all  the  honors  that  their  actions 
mav  deserve.  It  is  more  than  probable  —  it  is  certain  —  that 
there  will  develop  heroes  and  heroines  from  out  of  the  race 
of  whom  the  poets  will  sing,  and  when  this  is  accomplished, 
then  many  other  things  will  belong  to  them  by  right  and  the 
natural  consequences.  When  we  get  up  such  a  war  as  will 
call  for  the  need  of  these  negroes,  and  they  are  formed  into 
regiments  and  brigades,  put  on  the  blue,  rally  around  the 
flag,  charge  batteries,  and  do  all  the  duties  in  a  soldierly  way, 
then  they  will  feel  that  they  have  rights  here  that  they  never 
had  before,  and  millions  of  people  outside  of  their  race  will 
feel  the  same  about  the  matter." 

This  is  precisely  true.  In  the  wars  in  which  the  negroes 
have  worn  the  blue,  they  have  rallied  around  the  flag, 
charged  on  batteries  even  unto  the  jaws  of  death,  and  per 
formed  all  their  duties  in  such  a  soldierly  way  that  millions 
of  people  outside  of  their  race  believe  them  to  be  entitled 
to  all  the  honors  that  their  actions  may  deserve  —  even  the 
full  enjoyment  of  American  citizenship. 

But  it  must  be  evident  to  Mr.  Plunkett  that  the  dominant 
leaders  of  the  South  are  not  the  kind  of  men  who  could  be 

263 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

moved  by  the  influences  of  which  he  speaks,  or  by  humane 
or  Christian  or  patriotic  impulses.  Neither  the  negro  soldier 
who  charged  Fort  Wagner  or  San  Juan  Hill,  nor  the  negro 
educator  who  has  been  pronounced  to  be  among  the  greatest 
of  living  men,  would  be  recognized  by  them  as  an  American 
among  Americans. 

What  then  becomes  of  the  contention  that  it  is  the  white 
man  of  the  South  alone  who  knows  the  negro  ? 

The  rise  and  achievements  of  the  race  have  not  been  along 
one  line,  or  two  lines,  or  three  lines,  but  they  have  been 
witnessed  in  every  vocation,  avenue,  and  calling  of  American 
life.  In  the  brief  space  of  a  single  generation,  the  manu 
mitted  race  has  conquered  places  in  all  the  multiple  phases 
of  modern  activities.  Verily,  "  the  republic  is  opportunity/'1 

The  abolitionists,  philanthropists,  Christians,  and  human 
itarians  of  the  North,  and  those  scattering,  but  greatly 
deserving  Southerners  who  in  wisdom  "  faced  the  rising  sun,"" 
probably  built  better  than  they  knew  —  guided  and  upheld 
by  the  wisdom  and  power  of  Jehovah,  God  —  when  they 
decided  on  the  kind  of  education  that  should  be  open  to  the 
colored  race  at  the  close  of  the  war.  They  refused  to  regard 
the  colored  race  as  a  special  race,  and  therefore  needing  a 
special  kind  of  education.  They  acted  on  the  principle  that 
as  the  colored  people  were  a  part  of  the  human  race,  then 
any  kind  and  every  kind  of  education  that  was  good  enough 
for  a  white  man,  was  good  enough  for  them.  The  putting 
in  force  of  this  simple,  common-sense  idea  made  possible  the 
wonderful  success  of  the  colored  people. 

If  they  had  yielded  to  a  "  craze  "  for  industrial  education 
and  devoted  their  strength  to  it,  the  colored  race  could  not 
have  gained  in  a  hundred  years  the  great  advance  in  civiliza 
tion  and  the  splendid  achievements  which  now  stand  to  its 
credit  after  only  a  single  generation  of  endeavor.  For  empha 
sis  on  industrial  education  would  have  circumscribed  the 
mental  vision,  limited  the  aspirations,  narrowed  the  ambitions, 

264 


ACHIEVEMENTS   OF  THE  COLORED  RACE 

stunted  all  higher  and  broader  growth,  and  held  the  race 
close  down  to  the  lines  of  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of 
water,  which  was  the  endless  routine  under  the  slave  regime. 
The  colored  race  can  work,  it  knows  how  to  work,  it  will 
work,  and  in  an  experience  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  it 
proved  its  value  as  the  hardiest  of  toilers  in  every  Southern 
community. 

The  South  acknowledged  the  value  and  profitableness  of 
the  negro  as  a  toiler  and  producer  when  it  went  to  war  and 
fought  four  years  with  vast  loss  in  blood  and  treasure  to  hold 
him  a»s  a  part  of  its  system.  It  was  divinely  wise  that  the 
colored  race  in  beginning  its  new  life  of  liberty  was  taught 
to  look  also  on  the  higher  and  greater  things  of  life  ;  that  the 
mind  was  taken  beyond  its  accustomed  sphere ;  that  the 
things  denied  it  in  slavery  were  open  to  it  in  freedom  ;  that 
the  mind  might  expand  with  the  height  and  breadth  of  the 
universe. 

Schools  were  planted  :  the  lower  grades  ;  the  preparatory 
schools  ;  the  normal  schools ;  the  colleges ;  the  professional 
schools.  They  began  work  almost  simultaneously,  —  in 
some  cases  while  the  shock  of  war  was  still  on  ;  in  other 
cases  the  instant  that  peace  was  declared.  The  work  was 
earned  on  with  such  rapidity  and  thoroughness,  and  there 
was  such  hearty  and  overwhelming  response  from  the  colored 
people  —  who  crowded  and  overflowed  school-houses  with  their 
children,  and,  for  lack  of  room  in-doors,  sessions  were  held  out- 
of-doors  under  the  oak  and  elm  trees  —  that  the  white 
people  of  the  South  stood  sullenly  surprised,  and  the  people 
of  the  North  gladly  amazed.  It  meant  a  revolution  in  the 
Southland  irresistible,  sweeping,  all-embracing.  It  meant  a 
New  South! 

For  a  time  this  work  of  education  was  supported  by  the 
National  Government,  supplemented  by  Northern  benevolence 
and  by  a  nominal  fee  which  was  charged  the  colored  parent 
for  each  child.  The  people  of  the  North  contributed  money 

265 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

for  this  cause  without  stint  ;  chiefly  through  the  several 
religious  denominations.  In  this  work  the  Congregationalists, 
Methodists,  Baptists,  Presbyterians,  Episcopalians,  Unitarians, 
Friends,  and  other  denominations,  and  hosts  of  individuals 
heartily  co-operated.  But  greater  and  better  than  the 
money  contributions,  they  gave  thousands  of  their  conse 
crated,  devoted,  self-denying  sons  and  daughters  to  this 
humane,  patriotic,  Christ-like  work.  The  brave  men,  and 
it  may  be  said,  braver  women,  who  left  comforts,  luxuries, 
refinements  of  their  Northern  homes  and  went  to  the  South 
at  the  close  of  the  war  to  teach  and  lift  up  a  despised  and 
prostrate  people,  performed  a  service  for  humanity,  for  the 
republic,  for  the  kingdom  of  God  in  the  world  that  will 
go  on  with  ever-increasing  power  and  beneficent  fruitage 
through  all  the  countless  ages  to  come. 

True,  they  were  frequently  hampered  in  their  work  by 
irreconcilable  Southerners ;  their  school-houses  were  some 
times  burned  to  the  ground  ;  their  homes  stoned  in  the 
night ;  they  were  insulted  on  the  streets ;  they  were,  and 
still  are,  socially  boycotted ;  they  were  sometimes  murdered. 
But  their  work  went  on.  They  conquered.  The  best  South 
to-day,  notwithstanding  the  clamor  and  outlawry  inspired 
by  "  Jim  Crowism,"  is  being  converted  to  the  education  of 
the  colored  people.  Some  have  materially  assisted  in  the 
work  ;  others  have  given  it  the  support  of  tongue  and  pen ; 
and  still  others  have  become  efficient  teachers. 

Among  the  Northern  men  who  rendered  distinguished  and 
lasting  service  in  the  uplifting  of  the  race  was  the  Reverend 
William  W.  Patton,  D.D.,  late  President  of  Howard  Uni 
versity,  Washington,  D.  C.  He  was  a  man  with  a  history ; 
and  the  impress  of  his  great  life  was  stamped  on  thousands  of 
colored  youths.  He  left  school  an  ardent  and  uncompromis 
ing  abolitionist.  His  father  was  a  distinguished  Presbyterian 
minister.  But  he  entered  the  Congregational  denomination, 
as  it  offered  and  encouraged  the  greatest  freedom  for  the 

266 


ACHIEVEMENTS   OF  THE  COLORED  RACE 

expression  of  his  antislavery  views.  For  ten  years  he  was 
the  pastor  of  the  Fourth  Congregational  Church  at  Hartford, 
Connecticut,  and  made  it  a  great  antislavery  centre. 

In  1856,  because  of  his  antislavery  reputation,  he  was 
called  to  the  First  Congregational  Church  at  Chicago,  Illinois. 
His  sermons,  lectures,  and  addresses  soon  made  him  a  great 
favorite  in  the  West  among  all  antislavery  elements.  He 
aided  in  the  organization  of  the  American  Missionary  Asso 
ciation,  which  was  an  organized  protest  against  slavery,  and 
which,  through  its  numerous  schools,  colleges,  universities, 
and  churches  has  bestowed  countless  blessings  on  the  South 
and  the  nation.  He  also  aided  in  organizing  the  Chicago 
Theological  Seminary.  He  was  editor  of  the  Advance. 

Dr.  Patton  is  the  author  of  the  words  of  the  famous 
"  John  Brown  "  song,  which  "  express  the  moral  issues  of  the 
war  in  relation  to  slavery."  It  was  as  follows :  — 

I 

"  Old  John  Brown's  body  lies  a-raouldering  in  the  grave, 
While  weep  the  sons  of  bondage,  whom  he  ventured  all  to  save  ; 
But  though  he  lost  his  life  in  struggling  for  the  slave, 
His  soul  is  marching  on  !     O  Glory  Hallelujah  ! 

II 

"  John  Brown  he  was  a  hero,  undaunted,  true  and  brave. 
And  Kansas  knew  his  valor,  where  he  fought,  her  rights  to  save, 
And  now,  though  the  grass  grows  green  above  his  grave, 
His  soul  is  marching  on  !     O  Glory  Hallelujah  ! 

Ill 

"  He  captured  Harper's  Ferry  with  his  nineteen  men  so  few, 
And  he  frightened  **  Old  Virginny,"  till  she  trembled  through  and 

through  ; 

They  hung  him  for  a  traitor,  themselves  a  traitor  crew, 
But  his  soul  is  marching  on  !     O  Glory  Hallelujah  ! 

IV 

"  John  Brown  was  John  the  Baptist  of  the  Christ  we  are  to  see  — 
Christ  who  of  the  bondman  shall  the  Liberator  be  ; 
And  soon  throughout  the  sunny  South  the  slaves  shall  all  be  free, 
For  his  soul  is  marching  on  !     O  Glory  Hallelujah  !  " 

267 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

The  entire  song  was  afterward  printed  in  the  Chicago 
Tribune,  and  became  wonderfully  popular  in  the  Western 
army.  The  "  Jubilee  Singers,'1  some  years  after,  adopted 
two  of  the  stanzas  for  their  use,  thus  giving  them  yet  wider 
currency.  Wendell  Phillips  was  accustomed  at  times  to 
quote  the  third  stanza  with  great  effect. 

When  the  war  came  Dr.  Patton  announced  from  his 
pulpit  that  the  lecture-room  of  his  church  should  be  used 
for  the  purpose  of  drilling  the  soldiers.  He  was  made  Vice- 
President  of  the  Sanitary  Commission  of  the  Northwest 
and  became  its  chief  executive  officer,  visiting  the  seat  of 
war  and  looking  after  the  sick  and  wounded  soldiers  and  the 
sanitary  condition  of  hospitals.  He  was  the  inspirer  of,  and 
chief  figure  in,  the  great  mass  meeting  at  Chicago  which 
sent  a  memorial  to  President  Lincoln,  urging  him  to  issue  a 
proclamation  freeing  the  slaves.  He  was  chairman  and 
spokesman  of  the  committee  which  bore  the  memorial ; 
and  he  was  ably  assisted  by  Dr.  John  Dempster  and  the 
Honorable  Charles  Walker. 

President  Lincoln  talked  with  them  freely.  After  the 
conference  Secretary  Stanton  said  to  Mr.  Medill  of  the 
Chicago  Tribune :  "  Tell  those  Chicago  clergymen  who  waited 
on  the  President  about  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation, 
that  their  interview  finished  the  business."  It  was  even  so. 
The  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  issued  shortly  afterward. 
Scholar,  preacher,  editor,  lecturer,  organizer,  teacher,  president 
of  a  university,  invincible  foe  of  slavery.  Behold  him ! 

This  recital  will  give  some  insight  into  the  mental  and 
moral  stamina  and  high  character  of  the  men  and  women  who 
planned  and  laid  the  foundation  for  the  education  and  the 
uplifting  of  the  colored  race.  Among  the  pioneers  in  this 
work,  there  should  be  mentioned :  the  Reverends  M.  E. 
Strieby,  James  Powell,  Simeon  Gilbert,  E.  M.  Cravath,  E.  A. 
Ware,  John  G.  Fee,  G.  W.  Andrews,  John  Braden,  John  W. 
Alvord,  S.  C.  Logan,  Luke  Dorland  [and  his  wife],  R.  S. 

268 


ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  THE   COLORED   RACE 

Rust,  J.  M.  Walden,  A.  Webster  [and  his  wife  and  son],  L. 
M.  Dunton  [and  his  wife],  J.  C.  Hartzell,  J.  W.  Hamilton, 
E.  ¥.  Williams,  Amos  Billings  [and  his  wife],  Samuel  Loom  is 
[and  his  wife],  Richard  H.  Allen,  Alfred  Owen,  Theodore  E. 
Balch,  D.  W.  Phillips,  M.  R.  Miller,  E.  C.  Mitchell,  E.  P. 
Cowan,  Isaac  Rendall,  A.  Wescott,  Dr.  Tupper  [and  his 
wife];  Professors  C.  W.  Francis,  A.  K.  Spence,  Henry  S. 
Bennett,  C.  H.  Richards,  John  A.  Cole,  A.  J.  Steele,  Helen 
C.  Morgan  ;  Miss  Cahill,  Miss  Welles,  Miss  Kate  Moorehead, 
Miss  Helen  Bayden ,  Mrs.  S.  J.  Neil  [widow  of  a  Union 
officer] ;  Generals  Clinton  B.  Fisk,  George  Whipple,  E. 
Whittlesey,  Charles  H.  Howard,  S.  C.  Armstrong,  Alvord, 
William  Birney  ;  and  Doctors  G.  W.  Hubbard,  D.  S.  Lamb, 
and  N.  F.  Graham,  who  have  had  such  great  success  in  pro 
moting  the  education  of  colored  youths  in  medicine,  dentistry, 
and  pharmacy.  Bishops  Haven  and  Mallalieu  were  also 
potent  forces.  General  O.  O.  Howard  who  was  at  the  head 
of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  was  the  mentor  and  rendered  in 
valuable  services.  It  was  a  work  in  which  thousands  were 
engaged,  so  that  the  above  mention  of  a  few  individuals 
to  show  the  character  of  the  whole  will  not  appear  invidious. 
Every  man  and  woman  who  enlisted  in  this  second  army  of 
invasion  of  the  South,  with  spelling-books  instead  of  muskets, 
is  worthy  of  mention  and  deserving  of  praise.  All  of  them 
faced  ostracism,  some  fell  martyrs. 

In  certain  instances  the  law  of  compensation  operated 
most  directly.  Libby  prison,  which  had  become  infamous 
because  of  great  cruelty  inflicted  upon  Union  soldiers  impris 
oned  within  it,  was  occupied  and  used  as  the  first  school  for 
the  education  of  the  colored  race  in  Richmond,  the  Capital 
of  the  Confederacy.  The  school  which  was  started  in  this 
former  prison  pen  by  the  Reverends  Nathaniel  Colver  and 
Charles  H.  Correy  has  grown  into  Union  University,  the 
leading  institution  conducted  for  the  education  of  colored 
youths  by  the  Baptists  of  the  North. 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Hampton  Institute,  which  has  the  name  of  General  Arm 
strong  so  inseparably  connected  with  it,  had  its  beginning 
under  a  colored  teacher,  Mrs.  Mary  S.  Peake,  who  was  em 
ployed  by  the  American  Missionary  Association  to  open  and 
conduct  this  school.  General  Armstrong  afterwards  took 
charge  of  it  and  gave  it  wide  and  deserved  fame,  but  it  was 
organi/ed  by  a  colored  person. 

It  was  also  in  harmony  with  the  law  of  compensation  that 
a  number  of  colored  people  who  had  escaped  from  slavery 
and  settled  in  the  North  or  in  Canada  and  had  taken  ad 
vantage  of  the  schools,  as  also  some  who  had  been  born  free 
or  set  free  by  the  slaveholders,  and  some  others  who  despite 
the  watchfulness  of  the  master  class  had  stolen  a  knowledge 
of  the  three  "  R's  "  in  the  dead  of  the  night  by  the  light  of 
the  light- wood  torch  —  that  these,  with  more  or  less  intel 
lectual  preparation,  should  have  entered  with  enthusiasm 
upon  the  work  of  educating  their  race.  Among  such  may  be 
mentioned :  Bishops  Daniel  A.  Payne,  H.  M.  Turner,  and  J. 
W.  Hood;  Reverends  H.  R.  Revell,  J.  B.  Reeves,  T.  W. 
Henderson,  and  Henry  Highland  Garnett ;  Professors  R.  T. 
Greener,  F.  L.  Cardoza,  John  M.  Langston,  J.  M.  Gregory, 
W.  H.  Crogman,  and  William  S.  Scarborough,  the  latter 
being  well  known  as  a  Greek  scholar ;  and  William  H.  Jones, 
James  A.  Bowley,  John  Shackelford,  and  P.  B.  S.  Pinchback. 

Naturally,  this  class  was  not  large  in  numbers,  but  it  was 
important  and  forceful,  and  a  great  inspiration  to  the  colored 
people  in  their  entrance  upon  the  new  life  of  liberty.  Some  of 
these,  and  many  other  colored  men  whose  chief  qualification 
was  "  mother  wit,"  became  leaders  in  religious  and  political 
affairs  among  the  colored  people.  Robert  Brown  Elliot  and 
Joseph  H.  Rainey,  as  members  of  Congress  from  South  Caro 
lina,  and  Major  Martin  R.  Delaney  of  the  Black  Regiment, 
are  among  the  most  conspicuous  colored  men  of  this  period. 

The  graded  schools  and  universities  established  were  nu 
merous  and  strategetically  distributed.  It  is  to  these  workers 

270 


ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  THE  COLORED  RACE 

and  to  these  schools,  and  to  the  workers  and  to  the  schools 
that  followed,  that  may  be  attributed  the  regeneration  of  the 
colored  race  which  has  been  wrought.  As  a  result  of  this 
impetus  the  colored  man  can  make  this  showing  in  a  single 
generation  : 

Educationally,  his  illiteracy  has  been  cut  down  forty-seven 
per  cent,  although  there  are  nearly  three  times  as  many 
colored  people  to-day  as  were  emancipated.  He  fills  the 
common  schools  with  1,200,000  of  his  children ;  30,000  are 
in  schools  for  higher  learning,  and  trade  schools  ;  over  200  are 
pursuing  studies  in  Northern  universities,  or  taking  special 
courses  in  European  institutions. 

There  are  about  2,000  negro  graduates  from  colleges ; 
more  than  400  of  these  have  graduated  from  white  colleges 
in  the  North  or  from  institutions  in  Europe.  Among  the 
Northern  colleges  and  universities  that  have  sent  out  colored 
graduates  are  :  Harvard,  Yale,  Michigan,  Oberlin,  Dartmouth, 
Columbia,  Brown,  Kansas,  Stanford,  Iowa  College,  Ohio,  Illi 
nois,  Bates,  Williams,  Indiana,  Boston,  Middlebury  College, 
Minnesota,  Wellesley,  Smith,  Bowdoin,  Denver,  Amherst, 
Beloit,  New  York  University,  Northwestern,  Nebraska,  Olivet, 
Vassar,  Radcliffe,  Adelbert,  Colby,  Rutgers,  Chicago,  and  the 
Catholic  University  ;  there  are  besides  a  score  of  others. 

A  number  of  negro  students  have  won  honors  in  Northern 
colleges,  as  for  instance  R.  T.  Greener,  W.  M.  Trotter,  R.  C. 
Bruce,  at  Harvard,  Marshall  at  Michigan,  Pickens  at  Yale ; 
and  there  are  others  that  might  be  mentioned. 

It  may  be  noted  that  278  colored  women  are  among  the 
graduates  of  colleges  ;  many  of  them  from  colleges  at  the 
North.  American  negroes  have  graduated  from  French, 
German,  and  English  institutions  and  some  have  prosecuted 
successfully  studies  in  Rome. 

The  following  leading  theological  seminaries  of  the  North 
have  sent  out  colored  graduates  :  Andover,  Princeton,  Oberlin, 
General  Theological  Seminary,  Yale,  Newton,  Drew,  Episcopal 

271 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Theological  School  of  Cambridge,  Union,  Hartford,  Boston, 
and  others.  In  all  about  two  hundred  colored  men  have 
graduated  from  Northern  theological  seminaries. 

The  Central  Christian  Advocate,  one  of  the  organs  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  pertinently  remarks :  "  What 
kind  of  negroes  does  America  want  ?  The  negro  is  here. 
Nothing  can  uproot  him  from  our  soil.  He  is  multiplying 
rapidly.  He  is  millions  strong.  He  is  walking  about  amid 
our  institutions,  our  rights,  our  constitutional  guarantees. 
What  kind  of  a  negro  does  America  want  ?  That  is  a  ques 
tion  that  a  generation  hence  will  make  the  republic  pause. 

"  No  country  is  safe  where  vast  masses  of  its  citizens  are 
forced  down  under  the  proper  exercise  of  their  capacities. 
That  is  but  damming  the  flood  that  presses  heavier  on  what 
is,  with  each  new  repression  and  scorn. 

"  The  long  and  the  short  of  it  is  :  The  negro  is  capable  of 
being  a  man,  and  therefore  he  has  a  right  to  a  man's  chance. 
Professor  Shaler  of  Harvard  says :  '  The  negro  has  mas 
tered  the  English  in  a  very  remarkable  manner.  There  are 
tens  of  thousands  of  untrained  blacks  in  this  country  who, 
by  their  command  of  English  phrase,  are  entitled  to  rank  as 
educated  men.  I  believe,  in  general,  that  our  negroes  have 
a  better  sense  of  English  than  the  peasant  class  of  Great 
Britain.1 " 

Secretary  Thirkield,  in  his  address  at  the  annual  meeting 
at  Lincoln,  Nebraska,  said  further  :  "  The  capacity  of  the  negro 
for  genuine  scholarship  has  never  been  more  strongly  stated 
than  by  the  Reverend  J.  E.  Edwards,  D.D.,  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  South,  in  the  Methodist  Review  for  April, 
1882  :  '  In  many  instances  it  must  be  admitted  —  and  exam 
ples  are  in  this  city  (Petersburg,  Virginia) — that  not  only  do 
they  make  as  rapid  advances  as  the  whites,  but  really  acquire 
thorough  scholarship  in  the  different  departments  of  learn 
ing  and  carry  off  medals  for  proficiency  in  mathematics  and 
in  the  languages  that  would  be  creditable  to  any  one  of  any 

272 


ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  THE  COLORED  RACE 

race  or  color.  It  is  idle,  and  only  shows  the  inveteracy  of 
our  prejudice,  to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  negroes  of 
the  coming  generation  are  just  as  capable  of  scholarship  and 
culture  as  the  whites.1 

"  There  is  but  one  way  to  measure  a  man  —  and  that  is  by 
his  capacity.  We  did  not  do  that  when  we  kept  the  negro 
in  slavery.  Let  us  beware  failing  to  do  it  now,  lest  the  God 
whose  thunderbolts  are  hot  bring  the  republic  once  more  to 
a  judgment  day." 

The  colored  man  and  woman  quickly  learned  to  put  their 
education  into  service  ;  it  was  not  allowed  to  become  a  drug  on 
the  market :  about  thirty  thousand  of  them  are  now  teachers 
in  the  public  and  other  schools,  and  hundreds  are  filling 
professorships  in  institutions  devoted  more  especially  to  the 
higher  education  of  their  race.  They  have  organized  and 
have  complete  control  over  a  number  of  colleges,  academies, 
and  industrial  schools  conducted  by  the  several  denominations, 
as  well  as  some  independent  schools.  They  are  the  patrons 
of  fifty  high  schools,  five  law  schools,  five  medical  schools, 
and  twenty-five  theological  schools  devoted  to  the  educa 
tion  of  the  race. 

About  two  thousand  negroes  are  now  engaged  in  the  prac 
tice  of  law  ;  perhaps  fifteen  hundred  are  in  the  medical  pro 
fession,  in  which  some  have  become  specialists  along  various 
lines;  some  have  built  and  are  conducting  hospitals,  as  Doc 
tors  Williams  in  Chicago,  Boyd  in  Nashville,  McClennan  in 
Charleston,  Mossel  in  Philadelphia,  Purvis  in  Washington, 
and  others  in  other  cities.  There  are  several  hundred  dentists 
and  pharmacists.  They  have  written  and  published  four  hun 
dred  books  ;  they  own  and  publish  three  hundred  newspapers, 
and  twelve  magazines,  some  illustrated,  and  others  devoted 
to  higher  literature  and  criticism. 

In  the  public  service,  individual  distinctions  have  been 
numerous.  Two  negroes  have  been  members  of  the  United 
States  Senate,  Revells  and  Bruce ;  and  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
18  273 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

sentatives  these  have  seen  service :  Elliot,  De  Large,  Cain, 
Haralson,  Lynch,  Nash,  Rainey,  Ransier,  Wells,  Rapier, 
Smalls,  Turner,  Ling,  Lee,  Cheatham,  Murray,  and  White  — 
and  not  one  of  these  violated  the  decorum  of  his  environments 
by  fisticuffs,  or  brought  other  scandal  on  himself  or  his  race. 
There  have  been  in  the  diplomatic  service  of  the  United  States, 
in  foreign  countries :  Bassett,  Langston,  Douglass,  Greener, 
Van  Home,  Garnet,  Smyth,  Astwood,  Turner,  Powell,  Grimkc, 
and  Lyons.  Negroes  have  filled  the  offices  of  Register  of  the 
Treasury  of  the  United  States  and  Recorder  of  Deeds  of  the 
District  of  Columbia ;  Terrell  and  Hewlett  are  now  exercis 
ing  judicial  functions  in  the  city  of  Washington.  A  number 
have  served  as  postmasters ;  a  few  as  collectors  of  ports  — 
as  Dancy,  Smalls,  and  Crum. 

Negroes  have  been  employed  in  the  United  States  secret 
service  and  in  other  important  positions.  W.  H.  Lewis  is 
now  assistant  district  attorney  of  the  United  States  Court 
at  Boston,  Massachusetts.  One  of  the  complaints  of  the 
reactionists  is  that  the  people  of  the  North  are  forcing  negro 
office-holders  on  the  white  people  of  the  South,  but  do  not 
sanction  the  election  or  appointment  of  negroes  to  office  in 
the  North.  In  discussing  this  matter  the  Atlanta  Consti 
tution  has  repeatedly  referred  to  the  Northerners  who  hold 
that  all  things  being  equal  the  negro  has  the  same  right  to 
hold  office  as  the  white  man,  as  "  Yankee  long-range  phil 
anthropists."  This  complaint  is  entirely  without  founda 
tion.  The  liberty,  the  civil  and  political  rights  of  the  colored 
man,  so  far  as  impartial  laws  can  make  them  secure,  are 
absolutely  assured  in  the  North.  Under  them  the  colored  man 
is  working  out  his  destiny.  Besides,  the  people  of  the  North 
have  encouraged  every  effort  he  has  made  to  free  himself  from 
the  blighting  evils  of  slavery  and  rise  to  the  stature  of  a  man. 

Colored  men  have  been  repeatedly  elected  or  appointed  to 
offices  in  the  North  by  the  white  people.  D.  A.  Straker  was 
elected  and  re-elected  to  a  judicial  office  in  Detroit,  Michi- 

274 


ACHIEVEMENTS    OF   THE    COLORED   RACE 

gan  ;  Ruffin  was  appointed  a  judge  at  Boston,  Massachusetts  ; 
Mathews  was  elected  a  judge  at  Albany,  New  York  ;  Carr  is  an 
assistant  in  the  district  attorney's  office  of  New  York  City;  a 
colored  lawyer  fills  a  similar  position  in  the  city  of  Chicago ; 
the  city  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  has  elected  Green  and  Smith, 
colored  men,  to  the  state  Senate  and  the  House  of  Represen 
tatives  respectively  ;  Chicago  has  elected  Morris  to  the  legis 
lature  of  Illinois  ;  Detroit  elected  Pelham  and  others  ;  Boston 
has  repeatedly  elected  colored  men  to  the  legislature :  Reed, 
Teamoh,  and  others;  and  colored  men  are  enrolled  in  her 
city  council ;  a  colored  man  was  chosen  a  member  of  the 
governor's  council  in  Massachusetts  ;  Philadelphia  has  elected 
colored  men  to  her  city  council,  and  hundreds  have  been 
appointed  on  her  police  force  and  to  various  lines  of  service 
in  the  city  government.  Rhode  Island  has  repeatedly  elected 
colored  men  to  her  legislature,  and  Pennsylvania  in  the  last 
national  election  chose  a  colored  man,  J.  W.  Holmes,  as  a 
presidential  elector. 

The  Boston  Herald,  referring  to  the  colored  men  who  have 
held  positions  in  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  says  :  "  The  list 
includes  an  alderman,  two  representatives  in  the  legislature, 
seven  members  of  the  common  council,  a  chief  of  the  fire  depart 
ment,  where  he  was  the  only  man  of  African  blood,  a  police 
man  in  the  service  for  nineteen  years,  a  municipal  bacteriolo 
gist,  a  commander  of  a  white  post  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the 
Republic,  a  trustee  of  the  public  library,  and  a  woman  almost 
purely  African  in  blood  as  principal  of  a  public  school  in  a 
first-class  residential  district,  with  six  white  teachers  as  her 
subordinates  and  with  several  hundred  white  pupils.  Besides, 
Harvard  University  has  paid  distinguished  honors  to  not  a  few 
men  of  color  who  have  studied  there.  Cambridge  is  a  city 
which  in  its  rank  as  a  civilized  community  can  certainly  com 
pare  with  any  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  And  yet 
none  of  its  citizens  would  ever  dream  that  in  thus  honoring 
certain  of  their  fellows  with  negro  blood  in  their  veins  they 

275 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

would  render  themselves  liable  to  have  a  negro  ask  the  hand 
of  their  daughter  in  marriage  —  a  contingency  that  proverbi 
ally  is  submitted  for  consideration  as  a  poser  when  questions 
as  to  negro  equality  are  asked  in  the  South.  The  thing  is 
that  in  Cambridge,  as  in  many  other  intelligent  and  corres 
pondingly  unprejudiced  communities,  a  man,  whatever  his 
race,  is  regarded  according  to  his  capacity  as  a  human  being, 
and  not  by  the  color  of  his  skin,  any  more  than  by  the 
color  of  his  eyes  or  hair."" 

These  are  but  a  few  of  the  instances  of  the  election  and 
appointment  of  colored  men  to  office  in  the  North ;  and  they 
are  alike  complimentary  to  the  colored  man,  as  evidence  of 
his  rise  in  civilization,  and  to  the  broad,  patriotic,  and  benev 
olent  policy  of  the  people  of  the  North  in  dealing  with  him. 

Practically  in  every  Northern  state  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific,  and  from  the  Mason-Dixon  line  to  the  Great 
Lakes,  colored  men  have  been  and  are  enjoying  political 
preferment  with  the  sanction  of  the  great  body  of  the  people. 

The  number  of  colored  men  and  women  who  are  in  the 
employment  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States  in  the 
departments  at  Washington,  and  other  places,  will  probably 
be  a  surprise  to  many  people.  These  colored  men  and 
women  reached  the  positions  held,  not  through  political  pull 
or  favoritism,  but  by  merit  —  generally  through  the  civil 
service  examinations. 

The  table  on  page  277,  compiled  from  official  data,  shows 
the  number  of  colored  employees  in  the  service  of  the 
Government,  exclusive  of  the  United  States  Capitol  and  the 
judiciary. 

In  the  activities  of  church  life  the  colored  man  has  prob 
ably  scored  his  greatest  success.  As  a  minister  he  was 
unhampered  by  race  prejudice ;  his  work  was  among  his  own 
people.  To  this  work  he  gave  himself  with  an  earnestness 
and  a  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  difficult  to  surpass.  He  freely 
offered  to  God  and  his  people  the  service  of  the  best  talents  he 

276 


ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  THE  COLORED  RACE 


COLORED  OFFICERS,  CLERKS,  AND  OTHER  EMPLOYEES  IN  THE  SERVICE 
OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  GOVERNSIENT,  1904. 


No. 

Salaries 

Diplomatic  and  consular  service 

13 

$32  000 

Department  service  : 
State    

10 

7  600 

596 

391,834 

War     

122 

94,910 

42 

29,736 

Post-Office    

103 

66,840 

Interior    

219 

167  260 

17 

13,520 

Agriculture  .... 

100 

53  272 

Commerce  and  labor  

125 

78,856 

Government  Printing1  Office 

320 

210  874 

Interstate  Commerce  Commission    .... 
District  government,  Washington,  D.  C.  .     . 
Recorder  of  deeds       .... 

4 

1,891 

22 

2,280 
847,055 
14,050 

Service  at  large  : 
Customs  and  internal  revenue 

258 

205,047 

Post-Office  at  large    

750 

611,140 

Land  Office,  New  Orleans 

3 

7,800 

Miscellaneous    ... 

5 

2,400 

Army  Officers    . 

10 

17,260 

Total      

4,610 

$2,853,734 

Recapitulation  by  localities  : 
At  foreign  stations 

13 

$32,000 

At  Washington,  D.  C  
At  New  York  City 

3,663 

188 

2,056,727 
153,982 

At  New  Orleans,  Louisiana     .... 

108 

96,740 

At  Atlanta,  Georgia 

Q4 

65,780 

At  Savannah,  Georgia    . 

42 

32,766 

At  Augusta,  Georgia      
At  Baltimore,  Maryland           .... 

12 

40 

8,120 
31,444 

50 

37,820 

At  miscellaneous  points 

390 

321,095 

Army  Officers    

10 

17,260 

Total 

4  610 

$2  853  734 

possessed.     He  was,  and  in  many  cases  is  at  the  present  time, 
deficient  in  book  learning,  but  there  are  essential  qualities  of 

277 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

mind  and  heart  which  he  did  possess  and  knew  how  to  use  to 
the  glory  of  God  and  well-being  of  his  fellow-men.  Above 
all  else,  the  colored  minister  has  demonstrated  the  ability  of 
the  negro  to  organize  great  masses  of  the  people  into  solid, 
compact  bodies,  hold  them  under  discipline,  enforce  laws  in 
the  spirit  of  love,  and  make  millions  subservient  to  the  teach 
ings  of  the  Christ. 

In  the  religious  denominations,  the  colored  man  has  demon 
strated  his  capacity  for  self-government.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  It  has  6,429 
ministers,  5,715  churches,  728,354  communicants,  arid  prop 
erty  valued  at  nearly  $12,000,000  ;  it  conducts  25  schools,  the 
property  value  of  which  is  $855,000  ;  it  publishes  two  weekly 
papers  and  a  monthly  magazine ;  it  has  a  publishing  house  for 
its  Sunday  School  literature  at  Nashville,  Tennessee,  and  a 
publishing  house  at  Philadelphia  for  books  and  periodicals  ; 
it  has  over  2,000  missions  and  about  15,000  members  in 
Africa,  and,  in  addition,  it  has  missions  in  Canada,  Hayti, 
and  Bermuda,  and  also  conducts  schools  in  Sierra  Leone, 
Monrovia,  and  Cape  Town,  Africa,  and  in  Bermuda  and 
Hayti.  To  operate  this  vast  machinery  over  $500,000  is 
now  collected  and  expended  annually.  It  has  twelve  bishops 
and  thirteen  general  officers ;  one  of  the  bishops  is  assigned  to 
Africa  to  watch  over  the  work  on  that  continent. 

Another  denomination,  the  African  Methodist  Episcopal 
Zion,  close  in  name  and  closer  in  sympathy  and  work  to  the 
African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  operates  along  similar 
lines.  It  has  3,810  ministers,  2,985  churches,  and  542,422 
members ;  it  has  all  the  machinery  of  its  sister  body,  and  its 
Christian  Endeavor  work  is  especially  prosperous — having 
over  600  societies  with  more  than  30,000  members.  It  has 
seven  bishops,  a  full  complement  of  general  offices,  publishing 
plants,  and  twelve  colleges  and  schools,  with  Livingstone 
College,  Salisbury,  North  Carolina,  founded  by  the  eloquent 
J.  C.  Price,  at  the  head  of  its  educational  system.  There 

278 


ACHIEVEMENTS   OF    THE    COLORED    RACE 


are  several  other  colored  Methodist  bodies  working  along 
these  same  general  lines. 

The  colored  Baptists  are  numerically  the  strongest  denomi 
nation  among  the  colored  people,  having  10,726  ministers, 
15,583  churches,  and  1,615,321  communicants.  It  carries  on 
important  missionary  work  in  Africa,  and  has  a  large  printing 
and  publishing  plant  at  Nashville.  And  a  unique  fact  is  that 
about  forty-five  newspapers  in  various  cities  are  published  in 
the  name  of  this  denomination.  It  conducts  a  number  of 
schools.  Not  only  in  those  just  mentioned  but  practically  in 
all  the  denominations,  the  colored  man  has  found  a  home 
congenial  to  himself  for  the  worship  of  God. 

Dr.  H.  K.  Carroll  reports  the  following  membership  of 
negro  church  bodies  in  the  United  States,  not  including 
foreign  mission  membership,  for  the  year  1903 : 


Denominations 

Ministers 

Churches 

Communi 
cants 

Baptists      

10,729 

15,614 

1,625,330 

Union  American  Methodists      .     .     . 
African  Methodists       

180 
6,500 

205 

5,800 

16,500 
785,000 

African  Union  Methodist  Protestants 
African  Zion  Methodists  
Congregational  Methodists    .... 

68 
3,386 
5 
2,159 

68 
3,042 
5 
1,497 

2,930 
551,591 
319 
207,723 

Cumberland  Presbyterians    .... 

450 

400 

39,000 

Total 

23,477 

26,631 

3,228,393 

A  number  of  colored  people  are  connected  with  separate 
churches  which  are  not  independent  denominations,  but  are 
in  fellowship  with  white  denominations,  and  these  may  be 
recorded  as  shown  in  the  table,  page  280. 

These  figures  vary  so  slightly  from  those  of  another  au 
thority  as  to  be  practically  the  same.  It  is  a  matter  of  great 
significance  that  colored  men  should  be  operating  great  or 
ganizations,  co-extensive  with  the  jurisdiction  of  the  republic 

279 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 


Denominations 

Ministers 

Churches 

Membership 

Methodists  (Methodist  Episcopal) 

245,954 

Con^recrationalists 

139 

230 

12  155 

Episcopalians      

85 

200 

15,000 

Presbyterian  s 

209 

353 

21  341 

and  reaching  beyond  into  foreign  countries,  touching  in  the 
most  direct  way  the  hearts,  interests,  and  welfare  of  millions 
of  people.  This  work  goes  on  year  after  year  so  smoothly 
that  even  many  who  are  influenced  by  it  scarcely  realize  its 
proportions.  These  colored  denominations  own  $41,000,000 
in  church  property.  A  large  percentage  of  the  college-bred 
colored  men  are  in  the  colored  ministry.  Many  thousands 
of  the  colored  ministers  have  had  high,  normal,  or  prepara 
tory  school  training,  and  several  thousands  have  had  thor 
ough  theological  training.  There  are  colored  physicians  with 
incomes  of  $5,000  a  year  and  upwards,  and  colored  lawyers 
who  earn  equally  large  sums. 

The  colored  race  has  successfully  applied  its  education  in 
all  the  vocations  of  life ;  in  business  enterprises  in  various 
lines  :  life  insurance  ;  building  associations  ;  organized  chari 
ties  ;  slum,  prison,  and  temperance  work  ;  kindergartens, 
and  mother's  meetings ;  hospitals,  nurseries,  orphanages,  and 
homes ;  benevolent  club  work  ;  farming  and  truck-gardens ; 
savings-banks ;  contributing  to  newspapers ;  contributing  to 
magazines  ;  lectures ;  papers  before  various  bodies  ;  college 
and  student  aid ;  fraternal  societies  and  orders  ;  theatricals ; 
athletics  ;  stenography  and  typewriting  ;  telegraph  operating  ; 
instrumental  and  vocal  music  ;  inventions  ;  the  several  trades  ; 
and  on  through  the  long  list  of  human  endeavor. 

In  some  of  these  it  has  won  world-wide  fame.  In  the 
colored  race  there  is  probably  more  pathos  and  humor  than 
in  any  other  race,  probably  than  in  all  other  races  combined. 

280 


ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  THE  COLORED  RACE 

The  Irish  is  the  only  other  race  that  approaches  it.  These 
two  races  furnish  the  humor  that  kills  dull  and  heavy  cares 
and  makes  the  people  laugh. 

The  colored  Jubilee  singers  have  made  their  impress  on 
the  civilized  world.  People  of  every  degree  have  been 
swayed  and  moved  by  them.  In  minstrelsy,  Billy  Kersands, 
Sam  Lucas,  Tom  Mclntosh,  and  others,  will  not  be  soon  for 
gotten.  Several  regular  theatrical  companies  have  delighted 
audiences  in  this  country  and  in  Europe.  "  The  South  be 
fore  the  War,11  "  In  old  Kentucky,"  "  The  Smart  Set,"  and 
the  superb  company,  "Williams  and  Walker,"  and  other 
combinations  have  ministered  to  the  public  with  satisfaction 
and  profit.  In  these  lines  the  negro  has  been  frequently 
imitated,  but  not  always  with  success. 

In  athletics,  Harte,  of  Boston,  won  the  championship  as  a 
pedestrian  ;  Taylor,  "  the  whirlwind "  bicycle  rider,  broke 
and  made  records  and  won  fame  in  America,  Europe,  and  Aus 
tralia  ;  and  in  the  "  manly  sport,"  Peter  Jackson  and  George 
Dixon  held  the  championship  for  years  against  all  comers. 

About  five  hundred  patents  have  been  taken  out  by  colored 
men.  A  negro  patented  the  first  machine  for  pegging  shoes. 
Elijah  McCoy  has  taken  out  twenty-seven  patents,  mostly  for 
lubricating ;  Granville  T.  Woods,  twenty-two,  mostly  elec 
trical  ;  W.  R.  Purvis,  sixteen ;  Frank  J.  Farrell,  ten.  The 
patents  taken  out  by  negroes  cover  appliances  in  domestic 
and  personal  service,  agriculture,  transportation,  manufactur 
ing,  and  mining,  and  other  lines  of  inventions. 

In  the  fraternal  and  beneficial  organizations  the  negro  has 
gained  great  triumphs.  The  order  of  True  Reformers  is 
probably  the  leading  fraternal  organization.  It  was  organ 
ized  in  1881  by  William  H.  Browne,  and  chartered  in  1883 
under  the  laws  of  Virginia,  with  headquarters  at  Richmond. 
It  started  with  100  members,  and  without  capital.  It  now 
numbers  72,000  members ;  conducts  a  savings-bank  with  a 
capital  stock,  paid  up,  of  SI  00,000;  has  $300,000  on  de- 

281 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

posit ;  10,000  depositors ;  conducts  five  stores  in  as  many 
cities,  and  which  do  a  business  of  $100,000  a  year ;  it  oper 
ates  two  hotels  ;  it  owns  $400,000  worth  of  real  estate ;  it 
employs  over  800  negroes,  and  the  total  business  transacted 
aggregates  $8,000,000.  In  its  beneficiary  department,  it  has 
paid  out  in  death  claims  $902,092.75  ;  in  sick  benefits,  it  has 
paid  out  a  million  dollars.  It  publishes  its  own  newspaper 
and  its  membership  is  represented  in  twenty-six  states. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  colored  people  are  also  in  other 
orders,  including  the  Masons,  Odd  Fellows,  Knights  of 
Pythias,  Foresters,  Elks,  Good  Templars,  and  other  societies 
intended  to  care  for  the  sick  and  bury  the  dead. 

But  it  is  as  artisans  and  as  tillers  of  the  soil  that  the  negroes 
meet  with  their  greatest  success.  The  colored  man  has  put 
his  brain  and  his  brawn  into  the  trades  and  into  farming 
and  domestic  occupations. 

The  largely  increased  crops  produced  by  negro  laborers  — 
the  cotton  crop  alone  has  been  doubled  since  emancipation  — 
attest  their  increased  efficiency  and  industry.  The  millions 
of  Afro-Americans  engaged  in  agriculture,  mining,  manufac 
turing  industries,  mechanical  vocations  and  trades,  fishing, 
commerce,  and  transportation,  and  in  domestic  service  and  in 
other  lines  make  themselves  felt  in  the  life  of  the  nation. 
Mr.  Henry  W.  Grady  of  Atlanta,  just  before  his  death  about 
ten  years  ago,  in  a  speech  in  Boston,  declared  that  the  negro 
through  his  labor  contributed  a  billion  dollars  a  year  to  the 
wealth  of  the  nation.  He  is  contributing  more  than  that 
amount  at  the  present  time. 

Mr.  Morrell  of  Pennsylvania,  in  a  speech  in  Congress,  says  : 
"In  forty  years  the  number  of  farms  operated  by  white 
farmers  increased  371,414,  and  of  that  number  148,601,  or 
40  per  cent,  were  those  of  owners  or  managers,  and  222,813, 
or  60  per  cent,  those  of  tenants.  In  the  period  which  wit 
nessed  this  addition  of  white  farmers  in  the  South  Atlantic 
states  287,933  negroes  had  acquired  control  of  farm  land  in 

282 


ACHIEVEMENTS    OF  THE    COLORED    RACE 

those  states,  of  whom  202,578,  or  70.4  per  cent,  were  tenants, 
and  85,355,  or  29.6  per  cent,  were  owners  or  managers. 

"  In  considering  these  comparative  figures,  account  should 
be  taken  of  the  following  facts  :  The  negroes  at  the  close  of 
the  Civil  War  were  just  starting  out  upon  their  career  as  wage- 
earners.  They  had  no  land  and  no  experience  as  farm  owners 
or  tenants,  and  none  of  them  became  farm  owners  by  inheri 
tance  nor  inherited  money  with  which  to  buy  land.  Of  the 
371,414  white  farmers  added  since  1860,  very  many  were  the 
children  of  landowners  and  came  into  the  possession  of  farm 
land,  or  the  wherewithal  to  purchase  the  same,  by  inheritance. 
When  this  difference  in  the  industrial  condition  of  the  two 
races  in  1860  is  taken  into  account,  the  fact  that  the  relative 
number  of  owners  among  the  negro  farmers  in  the  South 
Atlantic  states  in  1900  was  practically  three-fourths  as  great 
as  the  relative  number  of  owners  among  the  white  farmers  of 
those  states  added  in  the  same  period  marks  a  most  note 
worthy  achievement. 

"The  statistics  for  the  South  Central  states  show  about 
the  same  proportions. 

"  As  already  stated,  the  total  number  of  farms  in  the  United 
States  operated  by  negroes  in  1900  was  746,717.  The  value 
of  these  farms,  including  buildings,  tools,  machinery,  and  live 
stock,  was  $499,943,734.  The  value  of  the  products  of  these 
farms,  inclusive  of  products  fed  to  live  stock  on  the  premises, 
was  $255,751,145,  and  exclusive  of  products  fed  to  live  stock, 
$229,907,702.  The  value  of  the  negro  farms  was  about  2J 
per  cent  of  the  total  valuation  of  the  farm  property  of  the 
United  States,  while  the  value  of  the  products  of  the  negro 
farms  was  about  6  per  cent  of  the  total  value  of  the  farm 
products  of  the  United  States. 

"  Turning  to  the  Southern  states  again,  we  find  that  the 
corresponding  proportions  are  greatly  increased.  In  round 
numbers  the  values  of  all  the  farm  property  in  those  states, 
and  of  the  negro  farm  property,  were  in  1900  as  follows :  — 

283 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 


States 

Total  farm 
values 

Negro  farm 
values 

Virginia      

$323,000,000 

$25,000,000 

North  Carolina    .     . 

234,000,000 

28  000  000 

South  Carolina     

153,000,000 

44,000,000 

Georgia                  .... 

228,000,000 

49,000  000 

Florida  

54,000,000 

6,000,000 

Alabama                          . 

179,000,000 

47,000  000 

Mississippi       

204,000,000 

86,000,000 

Louisiana 

198,000,000 

38  000  000 

Texas      

962,000,000 

56,000,000 

Arkansas 

181  000  000 

34  000  000 

Total      

$2,716,000,000 

$413,000,000 

"  In  other  words,  the  value  of  the  negro  farm  property  in 
these  ten  states  is  about  15  per  cent  of  the  total  farm 
property  in  those  states,  and  if  Texas  be  eliminated,  a  state 
which  is  in  much  of  its  area  not  closely  affiliated  with  the 
South,  and  in  which  the  negroes  have  comparatively  small 
interests,  the  proportion  would  be  over  20  per  cent. 

"  The  figures  in  regard  to  the  relative  values  of  farm 
products  at  the  South  are  still  more  striking:  — 


States 

Total  farm 
products 

Negro  farm 
products 

$73,000,000 

$8,000,000 

North  Carolina  

79,000,000 

13,000,000 

62,000,000 

25,000,000 

92,000,000 

27,000,000 

16,000,000 

3,000,000 

81,000,000 

27,000,000 

Mississippi               

91,000,000 

47,000,000 

66,000,000 

19,000,000 

Texas                                   

209,000,000 

21,000,000 

Arkansas  

66,000,000 

16,000,000 

Total     

$835,000,000 

$206,000,000 

"  Here  the  proportion  of  the  products  of  negro  farms,  as 
compared  with  the  total  farm  products  of  the  ten  states,  is 

284 


ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  THE  COLORED  RACE 

seen  to  be  nearly  25  per  cent,  or,  taking  out  Texas,  nearly 
30  per  cent. 

"  In  all  parts  of  the  country  except  the  far  West  the  per 
centage  of  improved  lands  on  farms  operated  by  negroes  is 
greater  than  those  of  white  farmers.  In  the  South  Central 
states  the  farms  of  negroes  had  68.3  per  cent,  while  the 
whites  had  but  28  per  cent.  The  total  acreage  of  negro 
farms  is  about  40,000,000  acres." 

The  New  York  Workl,  speaking  of  the  achievements  of  the 
colored  man  since  his  emancipation,  says  :  "  He  owns  137,000 
farms  and  homes  worth  8725,000,000 ;  he  has  personal 
property  to  the  value  of  $165,000,000 ;  and  he  has  raised 
$10,000,000  for  his  own  education  ;  his  per  capita  possessions 
amount  to  $72.50.  To  propose  that  the  nation  shall 
step  backward  in  the  face  of  such  a  stepping  forward,  is  a 
curious  way  to  argue  the  superiority  of  the  dominant  white 
man/'1 

This  is  a  practical  age,  and  in  such  an  age,  it  is  the  results 
that  count.  The  achievements  briefly  outlined  above  are 
the  direct  results  of  the  system  of  education  which  was  planned 
and  executed  by  the  pioneers  who  laid  the  foundation  for  the 
rise  of  a  race.  They  were  men  and  women  of  mature  thought, 
ripe  experience,  broad-gauged  intellect,  great  faith  in  God 
and  in  the  colored  man  as  responsive  to  the  same  influences 
as  other  men ;  and  their  mental  vision  swept  the  whole  field 
of  life  rather  than  one  phase  of  it.  They  acted  on  the  advice 
of  Colonel  Higginson  forty  years  before  he  phrased  it,  to  wit : 
"  What  the  whole  nation  needs  is  to  deal  with  the  negro  race 
no  longer  as  outcasts,  but  simply  as  men  and  women."  The 
Afro-American  must  not  permit  himself  to  be  "  specialized." 
Frederick  Douglass  was  accustomed  to  say :  "  It  is  vastly 
better  for  the  race  to  be  a  part  of  the  whole  American  people, 
in  the  same  sense  as  other  races,  than  to  be  a  little  whole  unto 
itself."  The  splendid  record  which  has  been  made  would 
have  been  absolutely  impossible  if  emphasis  had  been  put  on 

285 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

industrial  education  and  the  race  had  been  treated  as  a  special 
order  of  humanity. 

The  leaders  of  the  South  ofttimes  make  the  claim  that  the 
white  people  are  taxing  themselves  to  educate  the  negroes, 
and  that  they  have  spent  on  negro  education  over  a  hundred 
million  dollars  since  the  emancipation.  This  is  not  a  fair  state 
ment  ;  it  is  not  the  truth  ;  it  is  a  myth.  While  the  bulk  of 
the  taxes  in  the  South  is  paid  by  the  white  people,  it  is  also 
true  that  the  productivity  of  the  labor  of  the  colored  race  on 
farm  and  field,  in  the  rice  swamps  and  wooded  lands,  in 
mines,  factories,  and  workshops,  and  in  all  the  diversified 
forms  of  toil,  constitutes  an  important  element  in  those  taxes. 
The  New  York  World  is  authority  for  the  statement  that 
19,000  persons  own  the  property  of  that  city.  Suppose 
these  19,000  people  should  claim  that  they  were  taxing 
themselves  to  educate  the  children  of  that  city.  The  reply 
would  be  quickly  made  that  labor  pays  the  taxes. 

There  are  towns  and  cities  in  New  England  where  one 
family  or  a  few  families  own  the  industries  which  give  pros 
perity  to  the  communities.  If  the  members  of  such  family 
or  families  should  proclaim  that  they  are  taxing  themselves 
to  educate  the  children  of  the  thousands  of  working  people  — 
the  answer  would  be  given  that  labor  pays  the  taxes. 

In  the  South  the  masses  of  colored  people  are  laborers  ; 
and  the  colored  mari^s  labor  in  the  South  pays  the  taxes  for 
the  education  of  his  children,  exactly  in  the  same  sense  that 
a  white  man's  labor  in  the  North  pays  the  taxes  for  the 
education  of  his  children.  It  may  also  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  colored  man  contributes  more  than  a  billion  dollars 
a  year,  by  his  labor,  to  the  wealth  of  the  nation.  So  that 
he  contributes  in  a  single  year,  ten  times  as  much  to  the 
common  weal  as  the  South  has  expended  on  his  education 
in  forty  years.  Besides,  much  of  the  accumulated  wealth  of 
the  South  represents  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  the 
unrequited  toil  of  the  negro.  In  all  fairness  it  can  be  said 

286 


ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  THE  COLORED  RACE 

that  the  colored  man  by  direct  and  indirect  taxes  and  by  the 
productivity  of  his  toil  is  carrying  his  share  of  the  burden 
in  educating  his  children.  For  generations  his  labor  edu 
cated  the  masters. 

In  the  evolution  of  the  home  life  the  colored  man  has 
accomplished  notable  triumphs. 

The  chief  curse  of  slavery  was  the  obliteration  of  the  home. 
As  the  home  is  the  foundation  of  the  social  organism,  the 
colored  people  had  to  unlearn  many  things  which  the  master 
class  had  taught  by  precept  and  example  for  two  and  a 
half  centuries,  before  it  was  possible  to  begin  aright  the 
development  of  the  home  life. 

Under  the  old  regime  the  country  life  was  darker  intellect 
ually,  morally,  and  spiritually  than  the  city  life,  and  the 
closer  contact  of  city  life  had  its  leavening  influence. 

Barriers  apparently  unsurmountable  have  been  overcome. 
The  newly  awakened  desire  for  homes  became  a  strenuous 
passion,  which  has  led  to  the  secure  establishment  of  the 
family  life  on  the  legal  and  scriptural  foundations. 

While  the  colored  man  has  been  the  master  of  his  own 
home  for  only  forty  years,  yet  in  this  brief  period  he  has 
bridged  the  chasm  which  divided  him  from  his  wife  and 
separated  him  from  his  children  — has  unlearned  the  lessons 
taught  day  by  day  in  the  years  of  his  bondage  —  has  met 
with  heartiness  all  the  responsibilities  involved  in  the  family 
life,  and  now  reaps  and  realizes  to  the  full  its  joys,  fruitage, 
and  blessedness. 

No  others  among  the  cosmopolitan  population  of  the 
republic  make  greater  sacrifices  for  the  care  and  education 
of  their  children,  or  are  more  solicitous  about  their  future, 
or  take  greater  pride  in  their  successes  than  these  humble 
people. 

The  colored  mother,  almost  too  poor  for  her  poverty  to 
be  understood,  yet  with  a  mother's  love  and  anxiety  for  her 
children  will  waste  herself  away  in  the  kitchen  or  over  the 

287 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

wash-tub  that  her  offspring  may  have  the  advantages  of  the 
schools.  Unmindful  of  herself,  the  pittance  she  earns  goes 
almost  wholly  to  assist  her  children  through  college  and 
into  the  professions. 

The  illiterate  father  lengthens  his  hours  of  toil  on  the 
plantation  and  practises  economy  and  self-denial  in  many 
directions  in  order  that  his  promising  sons  and  daughters 
may  receive  an  education  and  enter  upon  a  life  of  broad 
usefulness. 

To  this  true  appreciation  of  the  home  and  the  recognition 
of  its  obligations  may  be  ascribed  not  only  much  of  the  pros 
perity,  progress,  and  happiness  which  freedom  has  brought  to 
the  colored  race,  but  it  is  also  the  rock  on  which  the  race 
must  build  to  insure  its  salvation  and  a  glorious  future. 

The  negro  race  is  struggling  upward.  It  should  have  the 
kind,  the  sympathetic  hand.  It  has  surpassed  the  expecta 
tions  of  its  friends ;  and  it  has  put  to  confusion  its  enemies 
who  have  taken  their  last  stand  on  the  ground  of  color  alone. 
The  rise  and  achievements  of  the  race  in  American  life  and 
civilization  overthrow  all  their  preconceived  ideas.  But 
color  cannot  be  a  perpetual  barrier  in  a  republic.  Manhood, 
patriotism,  thrift,  and  the  nobler  qualities  of  mind  and  heart 
are  superior  to  color  and  will  break  down  such  a  barrier. 

The  colored  people  need  only  to  continue  to  develop 
along  all  lines  and  stand  firmly  for  liberty ;  be  faithful  to 
the  Church,  patronize  the  school,  support  the  colored  press, 
encourage  professional  men,  cultivate  the  home  life,  practise 
thrift  and  economy,  be  helpful  to  each  other  in  all  the  lines 
of  endeavor,  honor  those  North  and  South  who  champion  the 
cause  of  freedom,  and  love  the  flag  of  their  country,  and 
these  shall  be  unto  them  the  forces  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts 
which  shall  overturn  the  oppressor  and  redeem  a  people. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  no  dangerous  or  un-American  ten 
dency  has  developed  among  the  negroes.  They  are  Americans 
of  Americans,  and  national  to  the  core. 

288 


ACHIEVEMENTS    OF  THE    COLORED    RACE 

The  late  Reverend  Dr.  J.  E.  Rankin,  for  many  years 
President  of  Howard  University  in  the  city  of  Washington, 
a  man  as  strong  and  inflexible  in  character  as  the  granite 
hills  of  his  New  England  home,  and  whose  presence  was  the 
balm  of  light  and  sweetness,  and  who  has  accomplished  a 
grand  and  noble  work  to  the  uplift  of  humanity  and  the 
glory  of  God,  wrote  these  beautiful  lines :  — 

"  I  know  no  difference  of  race, 
Of  African  or  Saxon, 
Of  tawny  skin,  or  rose-cheek  face, 
Of  hair  of  crisp,  or  flaxen. 
The  soul  within,  that  is  the  man, 
There  is  God's  image  hidden, 
And  there  He  looks  each  guest  to  scan, 
The  bidden,  and  unbidden. 

"  One  God  in  love  broods  over  all, 
One  prayer  to  Him  is  taught  us, 
One  name  for  mercy  when  we  call, 
One  ransom  Christ  has  brought  us  ; 
One  heart  of  meekness,  lowly  mind, 
Life's  counter-currents  breasting, 
One  Father's  house,  we  hope  to  find, 
In  God's  own  bosom  resting." 

M.  Taine,  in  his  "  History  of  English  Literature,"  Chap 
ter  I,  gives  a  description  of  a  certain  people  who  may  not 
now  be  readily  recognized.  It  is  as  follows  :  "  Huge,  white 
bodies,  with  fierce,  blue  eyes,  ravenous  stomachs,  of  a  cold 
temperament,  slow  to  love,  home  stayers,  prone  to  brutal 
drunkenness ;  pirates  at  first,  sea-faring,  war,  and  pillage  their 
only  idea  of  a  freeman's  work.  Of  all  barbarians  the  most 
cruelly  ferocious.  Torture  and  carnage,  greed  of  danger, 
fury  of  destruction,  obstinate  and  frenzied,  bravery  of  an 
over-strung  temperament,  with  a  great  and  coarse  appetite. 
To  shout,  to  drink,  to  gesticulate,  to  feel  their  veins  heated 
and  swollen  with  wine,  to  hear  and  see  around  them  the  riotous 
orgies,  this  was  the  first  need  of  the  Barbarians. 
19  289 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"They  left  the  land  and  flocks  to  the  women.  They  sold 
as  slaves  their  nearest  relatives,  and  even  their  own  children. 
The  Latin  race  never  at  first  glance  see  in  them  aught  but 
large  gross  beasts,  clumsy  and  ridiculous  when  not  dangerous 
and  enraged/1 

To  what  people  does  M.  Taine  refer  ?  This  language 
describes  in  one  stage  of  their  evolution  the  proud  and 
powerful  Anglo-Saxon  race,  who  are  to-day  the  leaders  and 
light-bearers  in  the  world's  thought  and  civilization.  In  the 
blaze  of  this  bit  of  history,  there  is  no  ground  for  despair  of 
the  American  negro. 

Christian  education  wrought  the  change  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon.  It  will  in  any  people.  Let  the  adherents  of  the 
Christian  faith  and  the  advocates  of  the  commonalty  of  man 
push  the  work  of  Christian  education,  and  every  step  of  its 
advancement  will  strengthen  the  foundations  of  the  republic, 
promote  the  peace  of  society  and  the  purity  of  the  Church, 
and  multiply  and  realize  the  grand  possibilities  of  Afro- 
American  citizens.  And  they  and  the  whole  nation  may 
sing,  with  a  new  meaning  and  power,  Julia  Ward  Howe's 
Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic :  — 

"  Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord  ; 

He  is  trampling  out  the  vintage  where  the  grapes  of  wrath  are  stored  ; 
He  has  loosed  the  fateful  lightning  of  his  terrible,  swift  sword  ; 
His  day  is  marching  on. 
Glory,  Glory,  Hallelujah. 

"  He  has  sounded  forth  a  trumpet  that  shall  never  call  retreat ; 
He  is  sifting  out  the  hearts  of  men  before  his  judgment  seat ; 
Oh  !  be  swift  my  soul  to  answer  him,  be  jubilant  my  feet ; 
His  truth  is  marching  on. 
Glory,  Glory,  Hallelujah. 

"  In  the  beauty  of  the  lilies,  Christ  was  born  across  the  sea, 
With  a  glory  in  his  bosom  that  transfigures  you  and  me ; 
As  he  died  to  make  men  holy  let  us  die  to  make  men  free ; 
His  word  is  marching  on. 
Glory,  Glory,  Hallelujah." 

290 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE 
NEGRO 

THIS  work  would  be  regarded  as  incomplete  if  it  did 
not  at  least  venture  to  point  out  a  way  to  some  prac 
tical  and  substantial  relief,  and  thus  help  to  pave  the 
path  for  the  amelioration  and  ultimate  obliteration  of  in 
tolerable  conditions.  That  something  can  be  done,  that 
something  ought  to  be  done,  is  the  verdict  of  every  patriotic 
citizen.  The  unwisdom  of  permitting  matters  to  drift  along 
until  a  dangerously  acute  state  of  affairs  shall  exist  in  the 
South,  breeding  serious  trouble,  must  be  patent  to  all. 

The  Springfield  (Massachusetts)  Republican,  the  Chicago 
Tribune.,  and  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  three  of  the  most 
important  and  conservative  journals  in  the  country,  have 
repeatedly  called  the  people's  attention  to  the  painfully 
anomalous  and  threatening  conditions  in  the  South.  Other 
journals  and  leading  citizens  have  sounded  the  alarm.  The 
nation  remains  amazingly  apathetic,  seemingly  believing  that 
somehow  in  the  order  of  Providence  these  evils  will  "  pass 
away." 

It  was  so  with  regard  to  slavery.  But  deep-seated  evils  do 
not  cure  themselves,  and  seldom  die  of  their  own  corruption. 

Is  it  either  common-sense  or  prudent  patriotism  to  drift 
on  until  a  settled  condition,  in  essential  respects  worse  than 
slavery,  disastrous  and  volcanic  in  its  possibilities  —  shall  be 
established  in  the  South  ?  Is  it  not  far  better  to  face  these 
evils  and  eliminate  them  ?  The  manhood,  the  womanhood, 
the  statesmanship,  the  all-pervading  principles  of  Christian 
ity  of  the  mighty  republic  are  entirely  competent  to  bring 
this  question  to  an  equitable  and  righteous  settlement.  No 
other  settlement  will  be  enduring.  Compromise  may  post- 
291 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

pone,  but  it  cannot  settle  fundamental  questions  of  liberty 
and  human  rights. 

"  Truth  crushed  to  earth  shall  rise  again  : 
Th'  eternal  years  of  God  are  hers." 

The  journals  above  mentioned  have  shown  that  the  colored 
people  are  becoming  restless  under  long  continued  persecu 
tions,  ostracisms,  and  outrages.  Here  and  there  they  are 
beginning  to  take  a  stand  under  pressure.  They  have  been 
wonderfully  blessed  with  conservative  and  Christian  leaders, 
who  have  succeeded  in  restraining  all  attempts  at  retaliation. 
"  Have  faith  in  God  :  trust  the  American  people  :  continue 
to  develop  along  all  lines :  all  things  are  sure  to  come  right " 
—  this  is  the  teaching  of  the  colored  leadership. 

No  people  have  ever  displayed  greater  forbearance  and 
long-suffering  than  the  free  men  of  color.  Colonel  Higgin- 
son,  in  an  interesting  magazine  article,  has  taken  great  pains 
to  show  that  the  colored  man  is  "  intensely  human "  in  all 
things  and  at  every  point.  And  here  lies  the  danger,  for 
there  is  a  limit  to  human  endurance. 

The  dominant  elements  in  the  South  make  a  fatal  error 
in  assuming  that  they  alone  must  have  the  final  word  on 
the  question  —  utterly  ignoring  the  colored  man  whose 
interests  are  coequal  with  their  own,  and  contemptuously 
disregarding  the  nation  whose  interests,  of  necessity,  are 
paramount. 

If  the  final  word  were  in  harmony  with  the  Constitution 
and  laws  of  the  United  States  there  would  indeed  be  no 
problem.  But  when  the  final  word  contravenes  or  super 
sedes  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States,  neither 
the  colored  people  nor  the  nation  can  or  will  accept  its  final 
ity.  The  lesson  of  history  should  impress  itself  here :  slavery 
was  forced  on  the  nation  by  a  radical  and  minor  element 
determined  on  building  up  a  peculiar  institution,  and  which 
finally  dragged  the  whole  South  into  its  support. 

292 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

The  War  of  the  Rebellion  was  made  on  the  life  of  the 
republic  by  a  radical  and  minor  element  determined  on  per 
petuating  this  peculiar  institution,  and  which  dragooned  the 
whole  South  into  it. 

The  peace  of  the  nation  is  now  blasted  by  a  radical  and 
minor  element  determined  on  the  destruction  of  the  liberty 
of  the  colored  citizen  and  the  building  up  of  a  new  peculiar 
institution  ;  and  which  has  by  incendiary  speeches  and  writ 
ings  and  by  the  machinations  of  secret  conclaves,  working 
more  stealthily  than  the  Ku  Klux  Klans,  united  the  white 
people  of  the  South  against  liberty  and  human  progress, 
without  regard  for  the  majesty  of  the  law. 

The  Honorable  Josiah  Quincy,  referring  to  the  early  days 
of  slavery,  said  :  "  Disgust  at  it  was  so  general  as  to  be  little 
less  than  universal.  Among  slaveholders,  the  language  and 
hope  of  putting  an  end  to  the  evil  as  soon  as  possible  was  on 
all  tongues ;  but  alas !  it  was  far  from  being  in  all  their 
hearts.  Some  of  the  leaders  saw  the  advantages  derived 
from  it  by  the  unity  and  identity  of  action  and  motive  to 
which  it  tended,  and  its  effect  in  making  Slave  states  move  in 
phalanx  over  the  Free  states.  They  clung  to  the  institution 
for  the  sake  of  power  over  the  other  states  of  the  Union,  and 
while  they  were  open  in  decrying  it,  they  were  assiduous  in 
promoting  its  interests  and  extending  its  influence.  By 
constantly  declaring  a  detestation  of  slavery,  they  threw  dust 
into  the  eyes  of  the  people  of  the  Free  states,  while  they  never 
ceased  to  seize  every  opportunity  to  embarrass  the  measures 
which  would  advance  the  interests  of  the  Free  states,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  strengthen  and  extend  the  interests  of 
the  Slave  states.  We  can  trace  their  policy  in  history. 
We  now  realize  the  result.  With  all  their  pretensions,  the 
leading  slaveholders  never  lost  sight  for  one  moment  of 
perpetuating  its  existence  and  power." 

There  may  be  discerned  a  sameness  in  the  methods  of  the 
ante-bellum  and  the  post-bellum  leadership  of  the  South. 

293 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"Dust,"  much  dust,  is  being  thrown  into  the  eyes  of  the 
people  now  by  stock -phrases,  dire  threats,  and  bald  subter 
fuges.  In  the  "  Solid  South  "  now  there  is  the  same  "  unity 
and  identity  of  action  and  motive,"  and  its  power  in  the 
government  is  unduly  magnified.  Equal  laws  for  all  is  the 
antidote.  In  the  light  of  history  it  is  clear  that  a  majority 
of  the  American  people  did  not  at  any  time,  from  the  begin 
ning  up  to  the  present  time,  approve  or  justify  the  institu 
tion  of  human  slavery.  Yet  it  grew  and  flourished  and  all 
but  brought  death  and  destruction  to  the  republic. 

The  vast  majority  of  the  American  people  are  now  uncom 
promising  in  their  opposition  to  a  new  and  peculiar  institution. 
The  fierce  fires  of  war  consumed  the  dross  in  the  Constitu 
tion,  and  that  grand  instrument  as  it  stands,  and  the  laws 
made  in  connection  therewith,  leave  no  room  for  doubt  that 
the  people  demand  a  truly  free  republic  with  equal  rights 
for  all  Americans. 

This  simplifies  the  question  and  indicates  the  remedy. 

First :  The  people  should  zealously  and  jealously  guard 
the  offices  of  president  and  vice-president,  and  preserve  them 
from  defilement  and  desecration  by  any  persons  tinctured 
with  caste  or  sectional  prejudices,  and  who  would  exalt 
these  above  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  land. 

It  is  axiomatic  that  no  citizen  is  worthy  to  be  the  presi 
dent  of  the  whole  people  who  does  not  stand  for  equal  laws 
for  the  whole  people.  The  Constitution  and  laws  of  the 
United  States  are  the  paramount  plank  of  any  platform  on 
which  a  president  may  be  elected  :  these  make  all  citizens 
equal  before  the  law,  and  positively  and  absolutely  forbid 
all  discrimination  on  account  of  race,  color,  or  previous  con 
dition  of  servitude.  Race  or  color  should  be  neither  a 
credential  to  public  favor  or  participation  in  the  govern 
ment,  nor  a  bar  against  the  full  enjoyment  of  any  immunity 
or  privilege  under  the  government. 

The  people  should  see  to  it  that  only  such  men  as  measure 

294 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

up  to  the  constitutional  standard  shall  be  elevated  to  the 
presidential  office,  or  to  the  vice-presidency. 

In  guarding  these  offices,  they  will  also  be  guarding 
the  various  cabinet  chairs,  and  thus  the  administration  of 
the  government  will  be  uninfluenced  by  the  brutalism 
of  the  traditions  of  slavery,  or  the  "Jim  Crowism"  which  at 
present  rules  the  South. 

It  is  a  travesty  on  free  institutions,  a  jeer  and  sneer  at 
a  righteous  national  sentiment  which  demands  equality  of 
rights  for  all  under  the  law,  that  the  very  men  who  are 
foremost  in  working  for  the  wholesale  disfranchisement  of  the 
colored  people  contrary  to  justice,  reason,  and  the  Consti 
tution,  and  subjecting  these  people,  who  are  equal  citizens 
with  themselves,  to  gross  humiliations  and  degradations,  and 
inflicting  on  them  many  inhumanities  —  that  these  men  are 
now  contending  that  one  of  their  own  number  shall  be 
placed  in  the  presidential  or  vice-presidential  chair.  Is  this 
not  a  mockery  on  civilization,  —  a  burlesque  on  republican 
government  ? 

At  the  Virginia  State  Convention  to  elect  delegates  to  the 
National  Democratic  Convention,  Governor  Montague  in  an 
address  advocated  the  nomination  of  a  Southern  man  on  the 
ticket,  and  at  the  very  same  time  President  Roosevelt  was 
roundly  denounced  because  "  he  eateth  with  negroes  and 
drin keth  with  them." 

Mississippi,  at  her  state  convention,  nominated  the  Honor 
able  John  Sharp  Williams  for  vice-president,  and  yet  this 
Southerner,  in  a  recent  speech  in  the  Congress,  vociferously 
declaimed  against  the  recognition  of  the  political  and  man 
hood  status  of  the  colored  man.  Yoking  the  negro  to  a  mule 
is  his  loftiest  idea  of  Americanism  and  humanitarianism. 
Such  a  man  the  leader  in  a  republic ! 

It  may  interest  the  country  to  know  that  Mr.  Williams 
was  elected  by  a  total  vote  of  1,433,  scarcely  enough  votes  to 
elect  a  constable  in  a  Northern  township.  This  shows  the 

295 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

farcical  character  of  a  Mississippi  election.  Think  of  it: 
1,433  votes  elect  a  member  of  the  Congress  from  Mississippi 
when  the  population  basis  is  nearly  200,000. 

Other  Southern  states  are  also  urging  favorite  sons  for 
these  highest  offices,  without  a  sign  of  compunction  of  con 
science  at  the  general  nullification  of  the  organic  law  and  the 
shameful  injustices  and  persecutions  forced  on  ten  millions  of 
American  citizens. 

These  men  have  already  wrought  the  general  ostracism  of 
the  colored  race  throughout  the  South,  and  by  imposing  on 
them  systematic  humiliations  and  degradations  they  seek  to 
take  heart  and  hope  out  of  the  race  and  bring  about  its  utter 
demoralization,  and  then  plead  these  very  conditions  which 
they  designedly  created  as  the  justification  for  harsher  and 
more  oppressive  laws.  The  possession  of  the  office  of  presi 
dent  or  of  vice-president  would  greatly  stimulate  them  in 
putting  the  final  touches  on  the  heinous  work,  for  it  would  be 
construed  as  an  endorsement  by  the  people. 

The  Atlanta  Constitution,  a  leading  Southern  journal, 
with  a  snarl  demands  that  the  South  be  represented  in  one  of 
these  offices.  General  Montague  of  Virginia  cynically  in 
quires  :  "  Is  this  not  a  reunited  nation  ?  " 

The  following  statement  from  the  Boston  Herald  would 
seem  to  cover  the  issue :  "  The  people  of  the  Northern  states 
do  not  carry  their  willingness  to  forgive  and  forget  to  the 
extent  of  ignoring  the  attitude  of  a  representative  Southern 
man  toward  questions  of  personal  rights  and  public  duty 
that  are  living  questions. 

"  For  example,  the  people  of  the  North,  as  a  rule,  believe  in 
the  supremacy  of  the  laws  of  the  land  and  of  the  orderly 
processes  of  the  courts  of  justice  in  dealing  with  violators  of 
the  law.  They  are  not  upholders  of  mob  government  and 
lynch  law,  and  they  will  be  likely  to  distrust  the  influence  in 
the  highest  office  of  administration  of  one  who  has  a  record  of 
approval,  or  of  tolerance,  of  lynch  law  in  his  own  state. 

296 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

They  would  object  to  a  man  of  that  kind  from  any  section  of 
the  country. 

"  But,  in  consideration  of  the  notorious  facts  that  this  man 
ner  of  lawlessness  is  more  rife  in  the  Southern  states  than 
anywhere  else,  that  it  is  sustained,  apparently,  by  a  more 
powerful  public  sentiment,  that  vindictive  murder  by  a  mob 
is  rarely  followed  by  any  punishment  of  the  murderers,  any 
Southern  candidate  for  the  chief  magistracy  of  the  nation 
would  need  to  have  an  especially  clear  and  conspicuous  record 
of  active  fidelity  to  principles  of  orderly  justice  and  Christian 
humanity  in  order  to  obtain  the  confidence  of  communities 
which  have,  and  desire  to  continue  having,  assurance  of  the 
reign  of  law,  according  to  the  standards  of  civilization. 

"  Again,  the  people  of  the  North,  as  a  rule,  have  a  strong 
feeling  that  there  should  be  equality  of  rights  at  the  ballot- 
box.  They  do  not  object  to  a  high  standard  of  qualification, 
and  especially  not  to  an  educational  qualification,  nor  strenu 
ously,  if  it  be  deemed  necessary  anywhere,  to  a  property 
qualification.  But  they  do  not  think  it  to  be  consistent  with 
democratic  principles  that  men  who  are  otherwise  qualified 
should  be  permanently  debarred  from  exercise  of  this  high 
function  of  citizenship,  on  account  of  race,  or  of  accidents  of 
birth  or  fortune,  not  necessarily  involving  moral  turpitude 
nor  inability  to  understand,  exercise,  and  conform  to  the  obli 
gations  and  the  duties  of  a  good  citizen.  They  believe  in 
the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law,  and  they  are  afraid, 
not  without  reason,  that  politicians  who  will  resort  to  such 
tricks  and  subterfuges  as  have  been  resorted  to  in  several 
Southern  states,  to  keep  intelligent  and  moral  colored  citizens 
from  the  ballot-box,  while  allowing  unintelligent  and  immoral 
white  citizens  to  have  the  suffrage,  are  not  to  be  trusted  with 
implicit  confidence  to  protect  the  rights  of  any  citizens  whose 
opinions  may  not  be  agreeable  to  them. 

"Furthermore,  there  is  a  prejudice  in  the  North,  not  so 
general  and  exacting  as  it  ought  to  be,  perhaps,  that  poli- 

297 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

ticians  should  be  trustworthy  in  the  matter  of  keeping  their 
formal  pledges  to  the  people.  The  people  are  disposed  to 
hold  their  public  men  to  a  rather  strict  accountability  in  this 
respect.  They  do  not  relish  being  fooled  by  men  who  ask 
for  power  on  a  specific  agreement  that  they  will  not  exercise 
it  in  a  certain  way,  and,  when  power  is  obtained,  use  it  in  pre 
cisely  the  way  they  assured  the  people  they  would  not.  The 
recent  action  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  Virginia,  in 
proclaiming  a  constitution  without  submitting  it  to  the  rati 
fication  of  the  people  of  the  state,  in  violation  of  the  condi 
tions  upon  which  a  convention  was  authorized,  is  a  case  in 
point.  Nothing  has  happened  in  the  last  ten  years,  hardly 
anything  since  Southern  conventions  chosen  to  oppose  seces 
sion  voted  for  it,  more  influential  to  make  Northern  people 
reluctant  to  trust  Southern  politicians.  Men  who  will  do 
such  a  thing  as  if  it  were  honorable  must  not  complain  if 
their  professions  of  public  policy  are  regarded  with  sus 
picion.  This  is  not  because  they  are  Southern  men,  but  be 
cause  of  the  exhibition  of  untrustworthiness  they  have  given. 
Northern  men  doing  a  similar  thing  could  not  command 
Northern  support  as  these  Southern  men  seem  to  command 
Southern  support. 

"  Considering  the  matter  in  another  light,  it  is  to  be  said 
that  the  people  of  the  states  where  political  opinion  is  free 
and  where  the  public  men  of  either  party  are,  as  a  rule,  mut 
ually  tolerant  and  regardful  of  the  rights  of  a]l  citizens,  have 
a  not  unreasonable  distrust  of  the  narrowness  of  view  and  the 
partiality  of  conduct  of  a  statesman  hailing  from  a  section 
where  practically  there  is  but  one  party,  where  generous  tol 
eration  of  differences  of  judgment  concerning  public  affairs 
is  not  the  characteristic  of  the  people,  a  state  controlled,  as 
several  Southern  states  are,  by  an  oligarchy,  instead  of  the 
sovereign  people,  a  state  which  is  not  democratic  in  the  gen 
eric  sense  of  the  term.  It  is  not  because  these  men  belong  to 
a  geographical  section,  but  because  they  are  of  a  certain  char- 

298 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

acter  and  represent  a  type  of  statesmanship  which  does  not 
stand  broadly  for  the  substantial  ideals  of  American  institu 
tions  —  equal  rights  and  equal  opportunities,  secured  by 
impartial  laws  justly  enforced.'1'1 

When  the  South  shall  produce  a  man  of  broad  and  national 
instincts,  a  devotee  at  the  shrine  of  liberty,  a  man  whose  char 
acter  and  public  services  shall  give  evidence  that  he  is  more 
an  American  than  a  Southerner,  who  is  true  to  the  letter 
and  spirit  of  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  this  country,  is 
not  the  slave  of  caste  or  race  prejudice,  upholds  the  prin 
ciples  of  equal  rights,  regarding  "  no  man  above  the  law  and 
none  below  it "  —  the  American  people  will  welcome  the  day 
as  the  harbinger  of  the  era  for  which  they  have  prayed  and 
wrought,  and  no  honor  in  their  power  would  be  too  great  or 
lofty  for  such  a  man. 

Second :  National  aid  for  education  is  an  imperative 
necessity. 

Among  the  colored  people  general  illiteracy  was  the  chief 
heritage  of  slavery.  Among  the  whites  a  heritage  of  dense 
ignorance  existed  in  great  areas.  Statutes  and  penal  codes 
prohibited  the  spelling-book  to  the  colored  people ;  and  the 
policy  pursued  to  keep  the  negro's  mind  in  darkness  also  had 
the  effect  of  blackening  the  mental  vision  of  the  whites. 

The  strength  of  "  Jim  Crowism  "  lies  largely  in  the  illit 
eracy  among  both  the  white  and  the  colored  people  of  the 
South,  powerfully  sustained  and  influenced,  of  course,  by  the 
virus  of  slavery  in  the  brain  of  the  whites.  This,  in  a  word, 
is  the  true  explanation  of  the  distressing,  disheartening, 
demoralizing  conditions  in  the  Southland. 

Education  will  raise  the  veil  of  mental  darkness,  and  chase 
away  the  clouds  of  ignorance,  dispelling  unreasonable  antipa 
thies,  and  ameliorating  conditions  generally. 

It  is  not  claimed  here  that  education  is  the  panacea  or 
"  cure-all "  for  every  ill  under  the  sun.  But  it  is  affirmed, 
without  the  least  reservation  or  fear  of  contradiction,  that 

299 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Christian  education  is  the  greatest  force  in  God's  universe 
for  the  regeneration  and  uplifting  of  the  people  and  the 
harmonizing  of  a  nation. 

In  former  years  the  three  "  R's  ",  reading,  Yiting  and  Arith 
metic,  had  the  right  of  way  in  the  education  of  the  people ; 
but  in  these  later  days  these  have  given  place  to  the  three 
"  H's ",  the  education  of  the  head,  the  hand  and  the 
heart. 

There  is  no  risk  in  assuming  that  when  this  threefold, 
symmetrical  education,  the  highest  type  of  Christian  civili 
zation,  shall  have  become  as  general  throughout  the  be 
nighted  South  as  it  is  in  the  great,  free  and  prosperous  North 
—  great  and  prosperous,  because  educated  and  free,  —  then 
truly  the  vile  "  Jim  Crowism  "  and  its  attendant  lawlessness 
will  cease  to  disgrace  the  American  name.  This  work  of 
education  in  the  Southland  is  even  now  advancing. 

The  people  of  the  North,  patrons  and  devotees  of  educa 
tion,  sent  the  spelling-book  in  the  trail  of  their  armies 
throughout  their  marches  in  the  War  of  the  Rebellion.  And 
when  a  place  was  captured,  almost  before  the  smoke  of  battle 
had  cleared  away,  the  work  of  the  schoolmaster  was  begun. 
Children,  young  people,  middle-aged  people,  old  men  and  old 
women  were  gathered  into  schools,  both  in  the  day-time  and 
at  night,  and  the  foundation  for  the  education  of  a  race  was 
laid.  The  barracks  occupied  by  soldiers  were,  when  vacated, 
turned  over  to  the  community  to  be  used  for  schools.  Out 
of  such  beginnings  was  developed  the  present  school  system 
of  the  South. 

The  Republican  organizations  which  achieved  the  recon 
struction  of  the  South  at  the  close  of  the  war  took  the  cue 
from  this  and  gave  the  South  its  first  system  of  free  public 
schools.  These  schools  have  grappled  with  the  problem  and 
have  been  nobly  reinforced  by  Northern  benevolence.  A 
vast  work  has  been  done,  but  a  work  as  vast,  probably  more 
so,  yet  remains  to  be  accomplished. 

300 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

The  financial  power  of  the  several  states,  ably  seconded 
though  it  is  by  Northern  benevolence,  falls  far  short  of 
meeting  the  emergency.  Neither  the  several  states  nor  the 
benevolence  of  the  North  seem  to  have  the  capacity  to 
increase  their  working  forces  materially. 

Supplemental  aid  from  the  national  treasury  is  an  abso 
lute  necessity,  if  the  illiteracy  which  hangs  over  the  South 
like  a  black  pall  is  to  be  lifted,  thereby  eliminating  the 
blighting  and  cankerous  evils  which  are  gnawing  into  the 
heart  of  the  republic  and  are  a  constant  irritation  and  an 
ever  present  disturber  of  the  people's  peace  and  prosperity. 

The  census  of  1900  places  the  total  number  of  white 
illiterates,  above  ten  years  of  age,  at  3,200,746.  The  total 
number  of  negro  illiterates  is  given  as  2,853,194.  So  that  in 
the  country  at  large  there  are  more  illiterate  whites  than 
negroes.  It  is  therefore  manifestly  unjust  to  single  out  the 
negro  and  make  him  the  target  for  denunciations  and  the 
object  of  oppression  on  the  ground  of  illiteracy.  The  census 
also  reveals  the  rather  startling  truth  that  while  the  South 
ern  states  have  only  twenty-four  per  cent  of  the  total  white 
population  of  the  United  States,  yet  they  nevertheless  have 
sixty-four  per  cent  of  the  white  illiterates  over  ten  years  of 
age.  Naturally,  the  mass  of  colored  illiterates  are  also  in 
the  South.  The  total  negro  school  population  —  that  is, 
from  five  to  twenty  years  of  age,  aggregates  3,485,188.  The 
school  facilities  of  the  South  do  not  reach  half  of  the  negro 
children  of  school  age;  and  a  large  percentage  of  the 
whites  are  also  without  school  privileges.  If  the  utter  inade 
quacy  of  the  length  of  the  school  term  should  be  taken  into 
consideration  —  a  school  term  in  many  cases  being  from  four 
to  eight  vveeks  in  the  year  —  it  could  be  said  that  the  large 
majority  of  the  children  of  both  races  in  the  South  are 
growing  up  practically  in  ignorance  and  will  greatly  rein 
force  the  present  large  army  of  illiterates  which  mark  the 
danger  line  in  the  life  of  the  nation. 

301 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

President  Charles  W.  Dabney  of  the  University  of  Tenn 
essee,  in  an  address  before  the  Southern  Educational  Society, 
said :  "  Our  duty  to  the  new  time  in  the  South  is  the  duty 
of  educating  all  the  people.  It  is  the  task  set  by  Jefferson 
for  Virginia  in  1779,  only  changed  and  made  more  urgent 
by  the  extension  of  suffrage  to  another  race.  This  is  the 
real  Southern  problem  :  How  shall  we  educate  and  train  the 
people  ?  It  is  the  problem  of  the  whole  country,  in  fact. 
How  shall  we  educate  all  the  people  for  intelligent  citizen 
ship,  for  complete  living,  and  the  true  service  of  their  God 
and  fellow-men  ? 

"  Our  conception  of  public  education  has  grown  very  greatly 
in  these  last  years.  It  has  grown  in  two  ways  :  first,  in 
content,  and  second,  in  kind.  This  conception  now  includes 
every  human  being ;  we  realize,  now,  that  all  must  be  edu 
cated  —  that  every  human  being  has  a  right  to  an  educa 
tion.  God  has  a  purpose  in  every  soul  He  sends  into  the 
world.  The  poorest,  most  helpless  infant  is  not  an  accident, 
a  few  molecules  of  matter,  merely,  but  a  plan  of  God,  and 
as  such  deserves  to  be  trained  for  its  work.  Every  child  has 
a  right  to  a  chance  in  life  because  God  made  him  and  made 
him  to  do  something.  .  .  . 

"  But  we  must  consider  our  problem  more  nearly  and  in 
more  detail.  Our  problem  is  the  education  of  all  the  people 
of  the  South.  First,  Who  are  this  people  ?  In  1900  these 
states  south  of  the  Potomac  and  east  of  the  Mississippi  con 
tained,  in  round  numbers,  16,400,000  people,  10,400,000  of 
them  white  and  6,000,000  black.  In  these  states  there  are 
3,981,000  white  and  2,420,000  colored  children  of  school  age 
(5  to  20  years),  a  total  of  6,401,000.  They  are  distributed 
among  the  states  as  follows.  [See  table  on  the  next  page.] 
Only  60  per  cent  of  them  were  enrolled  in  schools  in 
1900.  The  average  daily  attendance  was  only  70  per  cent  of 
these  enrolled.  Only  42  per  cent  are  actually  at  school.  One 
half  of  the  negroes  get  no  education  whatever.  ...  In  North 

302 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 


White 

Colored 

Total 

436,000 

269,000 

705,000 

West  Virginia     .... 

342,000 

15,000 

357,000 

491,000 

263,000 

754,000 

South  Carolina    .... 

218  000 

342,000 

560,000 

Georgia      

458,000 

428,000 

886,000 

Florida 

110,000 

87  000 

197  000 

Alabama    

390,000 

340,000 

730,000 

Mississippi                          .     .          . 

253  000 

380  000 

633  000 

590,000 

191,000 

781  000 

Kentucky                                        . 

693  000 

105  000 

798  000 

Total 

3  981  000 

2  420  000 

6  401  000 

Carolina  the  average  citizen  gets  only  2.6  years,  in  South 
Carolina  2.5  years,  in  Alabama  2.4  years  of  schooling,  both 
private  and  public.  .  .  . 

"  But  why  is  it  that  the  children  get  so  little  education  ? 
Have  we  no  schools  in  the  country  ?  Yes,  but  what  kind  of 
schools  ?  The  average  value  of  a  school  property  in  North 
Carolina  is  $180,  in  South  Carolina  $178,  in  Georgia  $523, 
and  in  Alabama  $212.  The  average  salary  of  a  teacher  in 
North  Carolina  is  $23.36,  in  South  Carolina  $23.20,  in 
Georgia  $27,  and  in  Alabama  $27.50.  The  schools  are  open 
in  North  Carolina  an  average  of  70.8  days,  in  South  Carolina 
88.4,  in  Georgia  112,  and  in  Alabama  78.3.  The  average 
expenditure  per  pupil  in  average  attendance  is,  in  North  Caro 
lina  84.34,  in  South  Carolina  $4.44,  in  Georgia  $6.64,  and  in 
Alabama  $3.10  per  annum.  In  other  words,  in  these  states, 
in  schoolhouses  costing  an  average  of  $276  each,  under  teachers 
receiving  the  average  salary  of  $25  a  month,  we  are  giving  the 
children  in  actual  attendance  5  cents  worth  of  education  a  day 
for  87  days  only  in  the  year.  In  1900  the  percentage  of  illit 
erates  among  males  over  21 — native  whites,  mind  you,  the 
sons  of  native  parents  —  was,  in  Virginia  12.5,  in  North  Caro 
lina  19,  in  South  Carolina  12.6,  in  Georgia  12.1,  in  Alabama 
14.2,  in  Tennessee  14.5,  and  in  Kentucky  15.5." 

303 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

This  exposition  of  the  school  facilities  in  the  South,  as 
discouraging  as  it  is,  does  not  expose  the  worst  side  of  the 
question.  The  colored  people  are  touched  near  to  the  heart, 
for  the  provisions  for  the  education  of  the  millions  of  colored 
children  are  woefully  and  alarmingly  inadequate.  Commis 
sioner  Harris  of  the  Bureau  of  Education  furnished  the  infor 
mation  that  the  state  of  Florida  provides  $1.89  per  capita  for 
a  full  year,  for  the  education  of  colored  children,  North  Car 
olina  $1.02,  and  South  Carolina  only  $.73.  When  it  is  con 
sidered  that  Massachusetts  spends  $38.11  per  capita  for  the 
year  on  her  school  children,  New  York,  $41.68,  and  Illinois, 
$25.16  —  the  contrast  must  leave  a  disturbing  impression  on 
the  mind  of  every  thoughtful  citizen. 

It  is  evident  the  South  cannot  handle  this  problem  alone. 
More  than  half  of  its  children  of  school  age  are  practically 
without  schools  to  attend.  The  nation  should  come  to  the 
rescue.  A  system  of  national  schools  under  the  Bureau  of 
Education,  especially  in  the  agricultural  districts,  generously 
supported  for  about  fifteen  years,  would  efface  illiteracy  and 
remove  the  excuse  for  unrighteous  laws.  And  this  would  add 
vastly  more  to  the  strength  of  the  republic  than  more  battle 
ships  and  a  larger  army. 

Horace  Mann  said  :  "  Every  follower  of  God  and  friend  of 
mankind  will  find  the  only  sure  means  of  carrying  forward  the 
particular  reform  to  which  he  is  devoted,  in  universal  edu 
cation.  In  whatever  department  of  philanthropy  he  may  be 
engaged,  he  will  find  that  department  to  be  only  a  segment 
of  the  great  circle  of  beneficence  of  which  universal  education 
is  the  centre  and  circumference." 

Third  :  Equalization  of  representation  in  the  Congress  and 
the  electoral  college  by  reducing  the  number  of  Southern 
representatives. 

In  a  previous  chapter  the  inequality  of  representation 
has  been  clearly  demonstrated.  All  that  has  been  said  there 
would  apply  here.  A  white  man  in  the  South  is  entitled  to 

304 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

one  marfs  share  in  the  government,  but  not  more  than  one 
man's  share.  When  by  circumventing  the  Constitution  he 
usurps  power  which  makes  him  three  times  as  strong  at  the 
ballot-box  as  a  man  in  New  England,  or  the  great  West, 
then  the  equilibrium  of  representative  government  is  de 
stroyed. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  says  :  "  Represen- 
tatives  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  several  states  accord 
ing  to  their  respective  numbers,  counting  the  whole  number 
of  persons  in  each  state,  excluding  Indians  not  taxed.  But 
when  the  right  to  vote  at  any  election  for  the  choice  of  elec 
tors  for  President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States, 
representatives  in  Congress,  the  executive  and  judicial  officers 
of  a  state,  or  the  members  of  the  legislature  thereof,  is  denied 
to  any  of  the  male  inhabitants  of  such  state  being  21  years 
of  age  and  citizens  of  the  United  States,  or  in  any  way 
abridged  except  for  participation  in  rebellion  or  other  crime, 
the  basis  of  representation  therein  shall  be  reduced  in  the 
proportion  which  the  number  of  such  male  citizens  shall  bear 
to  the  whole  number  of  male  citizens  21  years  of  age  in  such 
state.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  by  appro 
priate  legislation  the  provisions  of  this  article/1 

So  that  the  Constitution  imposes  on  Congress  the  duty 
of  fixing  representation  and  preserving  the  equilibrium  of 
the  states  in  the  government. 

When  the  white  people  of  several  of  the  Southern  states 
summoned  state  conventions  with  the  avowed  purpose,  pro 
claimed  boldly  and  above-board,  to  disfranchise  the  colored 
voters  and  remove  them  from  all  share  in  the  government, 
they  well  knew  the  penalty  provided  in  the  Constitution  to 
meet  such  a  case.  They  acted  with  their  eyes  wide  open. 
They  ought  not  to  haggle  or  balk  now  that  the  time  has 
come  for  Congress  to  act. 

The  National  Republican  Convention  recently  held  in 
Chicago  wrote  this  plank  in  its  platform  :  "  We  favor  such 
20  305 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Congressional  action  as  shall  determine  whether  by  special 
discrimination  the  elective  franchise  in  any  state  has  been 
unconstitutionally  limited,  and,  if  such  is  the  case,  we  demand 
that  representation  in  Congress  and  in  the  electoral  college, 
shall  be  proportionally  reduced  as  directed  by  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States/'1 

This  plank,  which  is  directly  in  line  with  the  Constitution, 
and  simply  seeks  the  equalization,  the  due  proportioning,  of 
the  several  states  in  the  affairs  of  the  government,  has  set 
the  South  ablaze. 

But  the  country  has  come  to  know  from  exasperating  ex 
periences  that  anything  and  everything  which  would  bring 
to  the  reputable,  talented,  prosperous  colored  citizen  a  just 
meed  of  recognition,  or  which  would  tend  to  prevent  the 
South  from  having  unfair,  undue  advantage  in  the  affairs  of 
the  Government,  would  most  certainly  set  the  South  ablaze. 

The  following  expressions  from  representative  Southern 
sources  will  disclose  how  unreasoning  and  unreasonable  is  the 
Southern  mind  on  questions  which  may  even  remotely  and 
indirectly  affect  the  colored  people. 

Colonel  Watterson  of  Kentucky  says :  "  President  Roosevelt, 
by  injecting  this  dreadful  racial  problem  into  the  contest,  has 
invited  inevitable  defeat." 

Mr.  Thomas  F.  Ryan  of  Virginia  says  :  "  Its  real  spirit  is 
found  in  that  deliberate  declaration  about  Southern  repre 
sentation,  —  a  spirit  which  foreshadows  a  new  force  bill  and 
makes  inevitable  a  concerted  movement  to  revive  all  the 
evil  passions  to  which  such  an  appeal  is  made." 

Colonel  Henry  B.  Gray  of  Alabama  says  :  "  It  boldly  de 
clares,  in  effect,  that  the  Republican  party  is  a  negro  party, 
playing  the  negro  above  the  Southern  white  man.  It  means 
negro  domination." 

The  Montgomery  Advertiser  says  :  u  But  there  is  one  result 
that  is  sure  to  follow  this  movement,  and  that  is,  that  it  will 
still  further  solidify  the  South." 

306 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

Congressman  Patterson  of  Tennessee  says  :  "  The  plank  in 
the  Republican  platform  which  threatens  a  reduction  in  the 
representation  of  the  Southern  states  is  a  revival  of  the  worst 
days  of  the  bloody  shirt ;  is  an  insult  to  Southern  manhood." 

The  Atlanta  Constitution  says :  "  The  South  got  a  slap  in 
the  face  in  the  shape  of  the  Crumpacker  threat  to  reduce  its 
representation  because  of  local  suffrage  laws." 

Senator  Tillman  of  South  Carolina  says :  "  If  Roosevelt 
wants  to  force  negro  social  equality  on  the  South,  we  are 
ready  to  meet  that  issue,  and  we  will  meet  it,  I  think,  to 
begin  with,  in  our  platform." 

Governor  Vardaman  of  Mississippi  says  :  "  I  sincerely  hope 
that  the  Democrats  will  accept  the  challenge  and  come  out 
squarely  for  the  white  man^s  government.  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  announcement  that  could  be  made  by  the  conven 
tion  at  St.  Louis  would  go  quite  so  straight  to  the  heart  of 
the  white  American  voters  as  a  clear-cut  declaration  against 
permitting  negroes  to  participate  in  the  government  of  the 
nation." 

These  are  a  few  of  the  multitudinous  comments  of  leading 
Southerners.  The  plank  has  not  the  remotest  relation  to 
the  question  of  social  equality.  The  reduction  of  Southern 
representation  according  to  the  constitutional  limitations 
would  not  alter  or  in  any  way  affect  the  standing  of  a  single 
colored  man  in  the  whole  South. 

It  would  not  add  one  single  colored  voter  to  the  electorate 
of  any  of  the  states.  It  would  not  disqualify  a  single  white 
voter.  The  Southern  leaders  could  continue  to  carry  elec 
tions  unopposed  or  by  a  practically  unanimous  vote.  For  the 
colored  man  would  be  as  much  out  of  politics  as  at  present. 

There  are  two  expressions  bearing  on  this  plank  which  are 
of  unusual  interest.  The  Honorable  John  Sharp  Williams, 
in  his  kevnote  speech  at  the  National  Democratic  Convention 
at  St.  Louis,  said  : 

"  The  real  object  of  the  Republican  party,  in  so  far  as  the 

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THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

plank  is  concerned,  however  specious  the  phraseology  in 
which  it  is  clothed,  is  to  reduce  Southern  representation, 
without  reducing  that  of  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and 
other  states,  or  wherever  the  negroes  are  disfranchised,  not 
as  such,  but  because  of  ignorance,  by  an  educational  qualifi 
cation,  or  because  of  any  other  right  reason,  in  any  other 
constitutional  way. 

"  Disfranchisement  of  a  negro  in  Mississippi  for  ignorance 
is  a  horrible  thing,  disfranchisement  of  a  white  man  for  ig 
norance  in  Massachusetts  or  Connecticut  is  a  part  of  New 
England  '  higher  education.1 

"  Let  not  the  business  interest  of  the  country  deceive  it 
self  ;  let  those  controlling  it  prepare,  if  Roosevelt  is  elected 
on  this  platform,  for  another  period  of  uncertainty,  unrest, 
business  disturbance,  and  race  war  in  the  Southern  states,  in 
stead  of  that  peace  and  prosperity,  which  both  races  now 
enjoy  and  which  has  been  rendered  possible  only  by  home 
rule  and  by  white  supremacy. 

"  In  keeping  with  all  this,  consider  the  negro  Santo  Bam 
bino  scene  in  the  Republican  National  Convention ;  the  wild 
adoration  of  '  my  little  Alabama  coon ',  or  was  it  a  Georgia 
6  coon '  ?  Why  was  it  all  thus  prearranged,  and  by  whom  ? 
Who  were  the  two  little  white  girls  placed  on  the  same  plat 
form  with  the  little  negro  boy  to  march  around  with  him 
carrying  flags  ?  Who  pretends  that  it  was  accidental  ? 
What  was  the  pretended  lesson  to  be  taught?  What  is 
the  subtle,  symbolical  meaning  of  it  all  ?  It  is  the  begin 
ning  over  of  the  old  scheme,  revived  for  political  advantage, 
to  retain  as  a  Republican  asset  the  solid  negro  vote  in  In 
diana,  Illinois,  New  Jersey  and  like-conditioned  states  — 
this  time  without  price  in  money  paid  —  by  disturbing  all 
over  the  Southland  peace  and  order,  by  demoralizing  reviv 
ing  industries,  unsettling  business  and  labor,  disintegrating 
society,  and,  as  a  remote  effect,  if  successful,  hybridizing  the 
race  there  and  Africanizing  its  civilization." 

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THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

Are  not  these  the  utterances  of  the  ranting  negrophobist 
playing  to  the  mob  to  excite  and  inflame  race  passions  and 
strife,  rather  than  those  of  the  calm  and  wise  statesman  hand 
ling  a  delicate  and  weighty  question?  Every  man  in  this 
country  knows,  and  Mr.  Williams  himself  knows,  despite  his 
evasions,  that  the  colored  man  is  disfranchised  in  Mississippi 
and  other  Southern  states  on  the  ground  of  color  alone. 
There  is  not  a  reputable  citizen,  white  or  colored,  who 
would  protest  against  the  disfranchisement  of  the  ignorant 
or  degraded  white  or  black  man.  The  demand  is  that  there 
shall  be  one  law,  applicable  alike  to  both  races.  Such  a  law 
applies  in  every  Northern  state. 

The  people  of  the  North  have,  at  the  solicitation  of  South 
erners,  during  late  years  invested  considerable  money  in  the 
railways  and  street-car  systems  of  the  South,  and  other  large 
sums  have  been  invested  in  factories  and  various  industries 
and  in  building  up  the  waste  places.  This  generous  outpour 
ing  of  Northern  capital,  coupled  with  Northern  hustle  and 
brains  and  the  hard  and  faithful  toil  and  drudgery  of  the 
colored  people,  are  the  two  greatest  factors  in  the  development 
of  prosperity  of  the  former  slave  states  —  the  New  South. 

Nevertheless,  Mr.  Williams  has  the  hardihood  to  threaten 
the  American  people  with  the  direst  consequences  if,  in  the 
exercise  of  their  sovereign  will  as  free  men,  they  shall  dare  elect 
Mr.  Roosevelt  as  the  President  of  the  United  States.  "  Pre 
pare,"  says  he,  "  if  Roosevelt  is  elected  on  this  platform,  for 
another  period  of  uncertainty,  unrest,  business  disturbance, 
and  race  war  in  the  Southern  states.11  This  is  a  reckless 
challenge. 

It  means  that  if  the  reactionists,  a  radical  and  minor 
element,  are  not  permitted  to  force  on  the  republic  a  new 
peculiar  institution  with  incalculable  possibilities  for  evil,  — 
destructive  of  liberty  and  constitutional  government,  degrad 
ing  the  white  man  as  well  as  the  colored,  burdening  the 
country  with  a  problem  greater  and  graver  than  slavery,  and 

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THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

securing  through  this  institution  enhanced  and  undue  politi 
cal  power,  which  would  be  a  revolting  injustice  to  every  state 
of  the  North  and  West,  —  then  they  will  make  reprisal  on 
Northern  capital  invested  in  the  South  and  bring  about  a 
race  war  on  the  negroes. 

However,  he  will  not  be  able  to  make  good  his  threat  so  far 
as  the  business  interests  of  the  South  are  concerned,  —  the 
good  sense  of  Southern  business  men  will  take  care  of  that ; 
but  he  or  his  friends  can  make  reprisal  on  the  negroes  or 
make  "bonfires"  of  them  at  will.  But  public  opinion  can  be 
depended  upon  to  stay  the  hand. 

What  possible  connection  is  there  between  the  reduction 
of  Southern  representation  to  the  proper,  constitutional 
basis  and  the  "hybridizing"  of  the  South? 

Such  reduction  certainly  does  not  bring  the  races  any 
closer  together.  It  does  not  alter  the  status  one  way  or 
another  of  a  single  colored  man,  nor  change  the  status  of  a 
white  man. 

As  to  the  hybridizing  plaint,  Mr.  Williams  should  go  slow. 
For  all  the  hybrids  in  the  South  are  children  of  white  men. 
All  the  hybridizing  which  has  been  done  there  is  the  work 
of  white  men.  But  why  denounce  the  hybrids  ?  They  have 
absolutely  no  responsibility  in  the  matter.  Would  Mr. 
Williams  dare  to  go  a  step  further  and  pour  the  vials  of 
wrath  and  indignation  on  all  the  fathers  of  the  hybrids  ? 

The  colored  man  is  far  more  concerned  about  keeping  the 
white  man  from  entering  his  back  door  than  he  is  about 
knocking  at  the  white  man's  front  door  for  social  recognition. 
Such  good  offices  as  may  come  to  him,  he  may  accept,  but 
he  does  not  clamor  for  more. 

The  truth  is  that  "hybridizing"  can  progress  in  the  South 
only  so  far  as  the  whites  themselves  shall  carry  it.  And  the 
colored  man  would  rejoice  in  the  day  when  the  honor  of  his 
wife  and  daughter  shall  be  respected  and  they  shall  become 
immune  from  the  taint. 

310 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

The  people  of  the  North  will  not  go  into  hysterics  because 
a  white  child  and  a  colored  child  waved  the  flag  of  the 
United  States  in  the  presence  of  ten  thousand  American 
patriots.  Colored  men  fought  and  died  for  that  flag  even 
when  threatened  with  death,  if  captured,  by  those  for  whom 
Mr.  Williams  speaks. 

The  people  of  the  North  want  the  colored  child  to  love 
and  honor  "Old  Glory"  even  as  the  white  child  honors  and 
loves  it.  And  it  may  come  to  pass  that  the  little  colored 
boy,  James  B.  Cashin,  the  son  of  a  reputable  colored  citizen, 
whom  Mr.  Williams  denounces  as  an  Alabama  "  coon,"  in  his 
maturity  shall  fight  and  die  in  the  defence  and  honor  of  the 
flag  of  his  country.  In  all  the  days  of  slavery  colored  chil 
dren  and  white  children,  boys  and  girls,  freely  played  and 
romped  together  and  ate  out  of  the  same  plate  with  their 
fingers.  There  was  no  protest  against  it. 

Another  expression  of  surpassing  interest  is  the  plank  in 
the  platform  adopted  at  the  National  Democratic  Convention, 
which  reads  as  follows :  "  The  race  question  has  brought 
countless  woes  to  this  country.  The  calm  wisdom  of  the 
American  people  should  see  to  it  that  it  brings  no  more. 

"To  revive  the  dead  and  hateful  race  and  sectional  ani 
mosities  in  any  part  of  our  common  country  means  confusion, 
distraction  of  business,  and  the  reopening  of  wounds  now 
happily  healed.  North,  South,  East,  and  West  have  but 
recently  stood  together  in  line  of  battle,  from  the  walls  of 
Peking  to  the  hills  of  Santiago,  and  as  sharers  of  a  common 
glory  and  a  common  destiny  we  should  share  fraternally  the 
common  burdens. 

"We  therefore  deprecate  and  condemn  the  Bourbon-like, 
selfish,  and  narrow  spirit  of  the  recent  Republican  Convention 
at  Chicago,  which  sought  to  kindle  anew  the  embers  of 
racial  and  sectional  strife,  and  we  appeal  from  it  to  the 
sober  common-sense  and  patriotic  spirit  of  the  American 
people." 

311 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

The  chief  significance  of  this  plank  is  the  fact  that  it  is 
a  demonstration  that  the  reactionists  and  radical  leaders  of 
the  South  have  accomplished  the  remarkable  feat  of  captur 
ing  the  National  Democratic  party,  horse  and  foot,  and  have 
"Jim-Crowed  "it. 

The  thoughts  in  this  plank  are  simply  the  echo  of  the 
speech  of  Mr.  Williams,  supplemented  by  the  views  of  Sena 
tor  Tillman  and  Governor  Vardaman.  The  merest  glance 
at  the  proceedings  of  this  convention  will  show  that  it  was 
dominated  by  the  extreme  reactionists  of  the  South.  For 
instance :  Congressman  Williams  of  Mississippi  was  the  tem 
porary  chairman  and  keynote  speech-maker;  Congressman 
Champ  Clark  of  Missouri  was  permanent  chairman ;  Senator 
Daniels  of  Virginia  was  chairman  of  the  committee  on  res 
olutions;  Senator  Tillman  of  South  Carolina  was  the  "  High- 
cockalorum  " ;  and  he  and  Senator  Carmack  of  Tennessee, 
Governor  Vardaman  of  Mississippi,  and  Senator  Bailey  of 
Texas  were  the  referees  and  censors  and  directors  of  the  entire 
proceedings  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  It  would  seem 
a  joke  to  regard  these  men  as  representing  Americanism. 
Who  would  urge  their  fitness  to  fix  the  standard  of  American 
life  and  shape  the  destiny  of  the  American  republic  ? 

It  was  an  ill  omen  that  this  great  national  gathering  should 
have  been,  to  all  practical  purposes  and  intents,  turned  into  a 
sectional,  a  Southern  pow-wow.  And  it  is  noticeable  that  in 
this  aggregation  not  once  was  the  commanding  voice  of  an 
eminent  or  a  trusted  Northern  leader  heard  above  the  din, 
nor  was  such  a  leader  assigned  an  important  post.  The 
South  was  in  the  saddle  and  the  extreme  reactionists  held 
the  reins. 

What,  indeed,  could  be  more  preposterous  than  that  this 
free  nation  of  80,000,000  people  should  surrender  their  gov 
ernment  to  the  control  or  influence  of  Tillman  and  Varda 
man  and  their  cohorts  that  dominated  the  convention  ?  The 
thought  of  it  makes  the  brain  reel. 

312 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

Mr.  James  S.  Henry,  a  special  and  responsible  newspaper 
correspondent,  reports  in  the  Philadelphia  Press  that,  "  From 
Pettigrevv,  of  South  Dakota,  who  was  a  member  of  the  com 
mittee  (on  resolutions),  it  is  learned  that  the  South's  only 
vigorous  contention  was  for  something  against  the  '  nigger  1." 
And  the  South  got  its  "  Jim  Crow  "  plank,  as  predicted  by 
Senator  Tillman  and  Governor  Vardaman. 

A  strange  fatuity  has  followed  the  Democratic  party  by 
reason  of  overbearing  Southern  leaders.  In  the  days  of 
slavery  it  became  the  helpless  tool  of  the  slaveholder.  In 
1864,  in  the  great  crisis  of  the  war,  and  a  year  after  the  chi- 
valric  Lee  had  been  hopelessly  beaten  and  driven  back  from 
Gettysburg  and  the  invasion  of  the  North,  it  declared  "the 
experiment  of  war  a  failure." 

In  1868  it  declared  the  reconstruction  of  the  South  as 
"  unconstitutional,  revolutionary,  null  and  void.11 

In  1876  a  streak  of  sanity  came  to  it,  and  it  "  recognized 
the  questions  of  slavery  and  secession  as  having  been  settled 
for  all  time  to  come  by  the  war.11 

In  1884  Mr.  Cleveland  saved  it  from  "daftness.1' 

In  1894,  in  the  midst  of  President  Cleveland^  second  ad 
ministration,  it  broke  loose  from  all  restraint,  and  not  even 
the  well-known  firmness  and  cleverness  of  the  President  could 
"doctor11  its  mania.  It  "pitch-forked11  him,  repudiated 
him,  threw  him  overboard,  and  went  wildly  daft. 

In  1896  it  fell  a  victim  to  Populism,  free  silver,  and  other 
fads.  In  1900  it  did  likewise.  And  in  1904  it  became  the 
helpless  prey  to  the  microbes  of  "  Jim  Crowism  ",  and  adopted 
a  "Jim  Crow "  plank  which  is  intended  by  its  sponsors  to 
get  the  people's  endorsement  for  a  new  peculiar  institution, 
more  dangerous  and  less  excusable  than  slavery. 

Not  a  word  of  criticism  is  here  directed  against  Judge 
Parker,  the  eminent  New  York  jurist  who  was  nominated  for 
the  presidency  of  the  United  States,  and  not  a  syllable  un 
favorable  against  Senator  Davis,  the  distinguished  citizen  of 

313 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

West  Virginia  who  was  nominated  for  the  vice-presidency,  — 
for  they  both  represent  the  best  class  of  Americans ;  and  not 
a  word  of  disparagement  to  the  progressive  and  prosperous 
commonwealth  of  West  Virginia,  which  is  rather  to  be  con 
gratulated  on  having  such  a  worthy  and  distinguished  citizen 
within  her  borders. 

But  the  "  Jim-Crowing"  of  the  convention  was  a  national 
misfortune,  as  it  lends  plausibility  to  the  Southerner's  declara 
tion  :  "  We  have  got  our  heel  on  the  neck  of  the  niggers 
and  we  can  hold  them  down  ;  and  we  have  got  a  clutch  in 
the  craw  of  the  Yankees  and  we  will  choke  down  their 
throats  our  views  on  the  negro  question." 

Successful  choking  was  done  when  the  convention  swal 
lowed  the  "  Jim  Crow  "  plank.  This  plank  is  a  compound  of 
cupidity,  cunning,  hypocrisy,  and  mendacity,  and  will  confuse 
no  one.  Historically  it  was  not  "  the  race  question,"  but  in 
truth  the  slaveholders  —  a  minor  element  of  the  people, 
who  threatened,  at  the  time  of  the  founding  of  the  govern 
ment,  not  to  enter  the  Union  unless  slavery  was  recognized, 
saying  that  it  was  temporary,  and  promising  its  certain 
abolition,  and  who  afterwards  strengthened  and  fastened  the 
barbarous  institution  on  the  republic  —  who  are  responsible 
for  the  countless  woes  to  this  country. 

And  it  is  those  who  have  inherited  the  ideas  of  the  slave 
holders  that  are  now  exerting  all  their  powers  and  chican 
ery  —  in  defiance  of  the  laws  of  God  and  the  laws  of  their 
country  and  the  moral  sentiment  of  mankind,  and  regard 
less  of  a  most  costly  and  bitter  experience  —  along  lines 
which,  if  continued,  will  as  certainly  bring  other  countless 
woes  to  this  country.  Indeed,  the  calm  wisdom  of  the 
American  people  should  see  to  it,  yes,  will  see  to  it,  that 
the  South  is  saved  from  the  folly  of  its  leaders,  and  the 
republic  from  the  crime  of  serfdom. 

"  North,  South,  East,  and  West  have  but  recently  stood 
together  in  line  of  battle,  from  the  walls  of  Peking  to  the 

314 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

hills  of  Santiago."  This  is  mendacious  !  Was  ever  the 
truth  so  mutilated  in  order  to  serve  a  mean  and  base 
purpose  ?  It  is  a  matter  of  public  knowledge  that  the  very 
first  regiment  summoned  from  the  Western  barracks  to  the 
front  in  the  Spanish- American  War,  by  General  Miles,  who 
was  at  that  time  at  the  head  of  the  army,  was  a  colored 
regiment. 

It  was  ungrudgingly  stated  at  the  time  and  universally 
accepted,  that  the  chief  honors  won  in  the  fights  around  the 
hills  of  Santiago  were  fully  shared  by  colored  soldiers,  the 
Ninth  and  Tenth  colored  cavalry,  and  the  Twenty-fourth 
and  Twenty-fifth  colored  infantry.  It  is  not  intended  to 
underrate  to  any  degree  the  invaluable  services  of  their  white 
comrades  in  arms  who  contributed  to  the  victory ;  but 
while  there  were  of  course  others,  Colonel  Roosevelt's  Rough 
Riders  and  the  Ninth  and  Tenth  colored  cavalry  were  the 
two  forces  which  make  forever  memorable  the  Santiago 
campaign.  But  for  the  timely  and  heroic  charge  of  these 
colored  soldiers,  San  Juan  Hill  would  to-day  mark  the  great 
est  defeat  and  humiliation  that  American  arms  have  ever 
met. 

Colonel  Roosevelt,  by  far  the  most  heroic  figure  in  that 
war,  said :  "  I  know  the  bravery  and  character  of  the  negro 
soldier.  He  saved  my  life  at  Santiago  and  I  have  had  occa 
sion  to  say  so  in  many  articles  and  speeches.  The  Rough 
Riders  were  in  a  bad  position  when  the  Ninth  and  Tenth 
Cavalry  (colored)  came  rushing  up  the  hill  carrying  every 
thing  before  them." 

The  New  York  Journal,  concerning  this  battle,  said  :  "  The 
two  most  picturesque  and  most  characteristically  American 
commands  in  General  Shatter's  army  bore  off  the  great 
honors  of  the  day,  in  which  all  won  honor.  No  man  can 
read  the  story  in  to-day's  Journal  of  the  Rough  Riders' 
charge  on  the  block  house  at  El  Caney,  of  Theodore  Roose 
velt's  mad  daring  in  the  face  of  what  seemed  certain  death, 

315 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

without  having  his  pulses  beat  faster  and  some  reflected  light 
of  the  fire  of  battle  gleam  from  his  eyes. 

"And  over  against  this  scene  of  the  cowboy  and  the 
college  graduate,  the  New  York  man  about  town  and  the 
Arizona  bad  man,  united  in  one  coherent  war  machine, 
set  the  picture  of  the  Tenth  United  States  Cavalry  — 
the  famous  colored  regiment.  Side  by  side  with  Roose 
velt's  men  they  fought  —  these  black  men.  Scarce  used 
to  freedom  themselves,  they  are  dying  that  Cuba  may  be 
free. 

"Their  marksmanship  was  magnificent,  say  the  eye-wit 
nesses.  Their  courage  was  superb.  They  bore  themselves 
like  veterans  and  gave  proof  positive  that  out  of  natures 
naturally  peaceful,  careless,  and  playful,  military  discipline 
and  an  inspiring  cause  can  make  soldiers  worthy  to  rank  with 
Caesar's  legions  or  Cromwell's  army. 

"The  Rough  Riders  and  the  Black  Regiment.  In  these 
two  commands  is  an  epitome  of  almost  our  whole  national 
character."" 

And  further :  hard  by  the  walls  of  Peking,  and  in  the  Philip 
pine  Islands,  the  colored  soldiers,  at  the  command  of  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  in  defence  of  its  flag,  have 
but  recently  stood  together  in  line  of  battle  with  their  white 
compatriots  and  moistened  the  parched  sands  of  that  tropical 
land  with  their  warm  life-blood. 

The  late  President  McKinley,  in  an  address  to  the  State 
Normal  and  Industrial  School  for  colored  persons  at  Prairie 
View,  Texas,  shortly  before  his  death,  said :  "  In  our  recent 
war  with  Spain  your  race  displayed  distinguished  qualities  of 
gallantry  upon  more  than  one  field.  You  were  in  the  fight 
at  El  Caney,  and  San  Juan  Hill  ;  the  black  boys  helping 
to  emancipate  the  oppressed  people  of  Cuba ;  and  your  race 
is  in  the  Philippines  carrying  the  flag,  and  they  have  carried 
it  stainless  in  honor  and  in  its  glory."  He  also  said  :  "  Your 
race  is  moving  on  and  has  a  promising  future  before  it.  It 

316 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

has  been  faithful  to  the  government  of  the  United  States.     It 
has  been  true  and  loyal  and  law-abiding. " 

Be  true,  then,  to  the  truth  and  history.  The  colored  sol 
diers  are  the  Southerners  who  won  the  greatest  glory  in  the 
Spanish-American  War. 

Is  it  a  "  Bourbon-like,  selfish,  and  narrow  spirit,11  to  demand 
that  no  section  of  the  country  shall  enjoy  unfair  and  undue 
advantage  in  representation  in  the  government  over  any 
other  section  ?  Should  it  "  kindle  anew  the  embers  of  racial 
and  sectional  strife,"  to  equalize  representation  in  a  repre 
sentative  government  according  to  the  basis  and  limitations 
of  the  Constitution  ?  For  what  does  the  Constitution  exist  ? 
Or  is  the  "  solid  South  "  above  and  beyond  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  ? 

Are  the  immense,  incalculable  business,  financial,  industrial, 
and  commercial  interests  of  this  republic  best  safeguarded 
by  giving  a  white  man  in  South  Carolina  or  Mississippi  three 
times  as  much  power  at  the  ballot-box,  in  the  electoral  col 
lege  and  in  the  Congress,  as  a  man  in  New  York,  or  Wiscon 
sin,  or  Indiana,  or  New  Jersey,  or  Connecticut  ?  Did  not  the 
"  solid  South ''  vote  for  free  silver  and  free  trade  in  the  last 
two  national  elections  ? 

The  facts  and  figures  given  in  a  previous  chapter  prove 
beyond  all  cavil  or  question  that  it  was  the  negro  vote  that 
elected  Mr.  McKinley  in  1896  and  saved  the  country  from 
disasters  and  woes  which  words  can  hardly  overstate. 

The  New  York  World.,  speaking  of  some  of  the  grave  and 
serious  consequences  the  nation  escaped  through  Mr.  Bryan's 
defeat  in  1896  and  for  whom  the  "  solid  South11  voted,  says : 
"The  'free-riot1  plank  was  quite  as  obnoxious  as  the  free- 
silver  plank.  The  resolution  proposing  to  deny  the  right  of 
private  contract  in  money  transactions  was  likewise  bad. 
The  intimation  that  the  Supreme  Court  would  be  packed  to 
secure  the  reversal  of  distasteful  decisions  was  scandalous. 
The  postponement  of  tariff  reform  '  until  the  money  question 

317 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

has  been  settled '  as  the  cheap-money  men  wanted  it  settled, 
was  a  betrayal  of  the  traditional  Democratic  principle  upon 
which  the  party  has  elected  its  only  presidents  since  the 
war.  The  opposition  to  the  use  by  Federal  courts  of  the 
writ  of  injunction  was  calculated  to  leave  the  Government 
powerless  in  the  face  of  emergencies  requiring  prompt  ac 
tion  to  protect  life,  industry,  and  property  against  mobs  and 
conspiracies."" 

The  votes  unjustly  wielded  by  the  "  solid  South  "  are  the 
greatest  menace  that  faces  the  nation,  and  may  in  a  close  or 
doubtful  election  produce  embarrassments  bordering  on  chaos. 
The  South  has  seized  powers  unlawfully,  by  wholesale  dis- 
franchisements.  And  wholesale  disfranchisement  in  the 
South  effects  the  partial  disfranchisement  of  every  Northern 
state. 

The  demand,  therefore,  for  equalization  of  representation 
in  the  electoral  college  and  in  the  Congress,  and  the  preser 
vation  of  the  balance  of  power  among  the  states  of  the 
Union  is  of  vital  concern  to  the  whole  people. 

It  is  a  condition,  not  a  theory,  that  faces  the  country. 

The  combined  white  population  of  South  Carolina  and 
Mississippi,  according  to  the  census  of  1900,  is  1,199,007,  and 
these  two  states  elect  15  members  to  the  Congress;  while  the 
combined  white  population  of  the  states  of  Minnesota  and 
Nebraska  is  2,793,562,  being  1,594,555  greater  than  the 
white  population  of  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi,  and  yet 
they  elect  only  15  Congressmen.  The  states  of  Maine,  New 
Hampshire,  Vermont,  Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut  have  a 
total  white  population  of  2,757,262,  being  1,558,417  greater 
than  the  white  population  of  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi, 
and  yet  they  elect  only  15  members  of  the  Congress. 

By  this  Southern  method  1,594,555  white  people  in  Min 
nesota  and  Nebraska  or  1,558,417  white  people  in  the  New 
England  states  named  above  have  no  voice  in  their  govern 
ment  and  are  practically  disfranchised. 

318 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

South  Carolina,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana  have  a  total 
white  population  of  1,928,719  and  elect  22  Congressmen  ; 
while  Ohio  has  a  white  population  of  4,060,204,  being 
2,031,485  greater  than  that  of  the  three  named  Southern 
states,  yet  elects  only  21  members  of  Congress. 

The  states  of  Indiana  and  New  Jersey  have  a  total  white 
population  of  4,270,825,  being  2,242,146  greater  than 
the  combined  white  population  of  South  Carolina,  Missis 
sippi,  and  Louisiana,  and  yet  elect  only  23  members  of 
Congress. 

By  this  Southern  method  2,031,485  white  people  in  Ohio 
or  2,342,106  white  people  in  Indiana  and  New  Jersey  are 
deprived  of  a  political  status  and  are  without  a  share  in  their 
government. 

By  massing  the  colored  population  of  South  Carolina,  Miss 
issippi,  Georgia,  Louisiana,  Florida,  and  Alabama,  the  injus 
tice  and  inequality  will  appear  even  more  flagrant  and 
condemnable. 

The  total  colored  population  of  these  states  is  4,433,605. 
The  Southern  leaders  refuse  to  recognize  the  colored  man  as 
the  equal  of  the  white  man  at  the  ballot-box  in  the  South, 
nevertheless  they  count  him,  and  play  him  as  the  equal  of 
the  white  man  in  the  North  in  order  to  secure  unfair,  undue 
representation  in  the  government. 

By  appropriating  to  themselves  full  representation  for 
these  4,433,605  colored  citizens  and  playing  them  against 
great  Northern  states,  they  can  effectively  achieve  the  political 
effacement  of  the  4,060,204  white  citizens  of  Ohio ;  or  the 
4,734,873  white  citizens  of  Illinois  ;  or  the  4,270,825  white 
citizens  of  Indiana  and  New  Jersey ;  or  the  4,456,474  white 
citizens  of  the  north  central  states  Wisconsin  and  Michigan ; 
or  the  4,209,881  white  citizens  of  Kansas,  Minnesota,  and 
Nebraska,  or  even  completely  neutralize,  nullify  in  the  elec 
toral  college  and  in  Congress  the  voice  of  the  great  Empire 
City  of  New  York  with  its  imperial  interests,  together  with 

319 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

the  states  of  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island  and  Delaware 
thrown  in  for  good  measure. 

Furthermore,  by  taking  representation  on  these  4,433,605 
colored  people  they  completely  offset,  negative  in  Congress 
and  the  electoral  college,  the  entire  white  population  of  all 
the  states  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  namely  California, 
Washington,  Montana,  Idaho,  Nevada,  Oregon,  and  Utah,  to 
which  we  can  add  North  Dakota  and  South  Dakota,  and  still 
have  1,153,508  negroes  left  to  overwhelm  and  negative  white 
voters  in  other  states. 

It  is  as  true  now  as  in  the  days  of  slavery  that  the  "  solid 
South "  grasps  the  "  advantages  derived  from  the  unity  and 
identity  of  action  and  motive,"  and  would  4<  move  in  phalanx  " 
over  the  great  states  of  the  North,  by  dividing  them,  and 
catching  here  and  there  a  few  Congressmen  and  presidential 
electors. 

But  will  not  the  methods  employed  to  make  and  keep  a 
"solid  South "  also  make  a  solid  rather  than  a  divided 
North?  A  North  solid,  however,  only  for  justice,  the  right, 
and  constitutional  government. 

The  "  solid  South "  wields  approximately  50  votes  in  the 
electoral  college  and  also  in  Congress  based  on  its  colored 
citizens.  All  the  New  England  states  taken  together  have 
only  29  votes.  What  freeman  of  the  North,  whether  Demo 
crat  or  Republican,  Socialist  or  Prohibitionist,  or  of  whatsoever 
party,  would  condone  this  flaming  injustice  and  crying  wrong, 
which  destroys  representative  government  and  menaces  free 
institutions  ?  He  must  regard  himself  as  the  third-of-a-man, 
for  the  white  man  in  South  Carolina  or  Mississippi  is  three 
times  as  potential  at  the  ballot-box  and  in  the  affairs  of  the 
government  as  he. 

This  question  is  greater  than  party.  It  cannot  be 
smothered  or  brushed  aside  by  the  hypocritical  shrieks  of 
sectionalism.  The  only  sectionalism  in  this  republic  is  that 
which  is  fomented,  kept  alive,  and  forced  on  the  people  by 

320 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

the  un-American,  perverse  attitude  of  the  leaders  of  the 
"solid  South." 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  plain,  explicit, 
mandatory.  It  imposes  on  the  Congress  the  duty  of  equalizing 
representation  in  the  government.  Whether  the  Southern 
constitutions  which  have  wrought  wholesale  disfranchisement 
of  the  colored  citizen  are  constitutional  or  unconstitutional,  in 
whole  or  in  part,  is  not  a  matter  of  particular  concern  to 
Congress  in  equalizing  representation  in  the  government. 
The  Southern  leaders  have  proved  themselves  experts  and 
pastmasters  in  framing  laws  for  the  oppression  and  degrada 
tion  of  others.  They  may,  by  circumlocutory  wordings  and 
cunningly  devised  phrases,  and  the  skilful  manipulation  of 
sentences,  have  succeeded  to  some  extent,  at  least,  in  cheating 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  But  it  may  be  dis 
covered  that  cheating  one  section  by  "  a  grandfather  clause," 
does  not  invalidate  other  sections. 

But  the  disfranchising  constitutions  and  laws  of  the  South 
ern  states  are  not  constitutional,  for  the  reason  that  they  are 
a  fraudulent  restraint  on  liberty  and  representative  govern 
ment,  and  were  so  intended  to  be. 

The  presiding  officer  of  the  Louisiana  Constitutional  Con 
vention,  in  his  closing  address,  said :  "  What  care  I  whether 
it  [the  Constitution]  be  more  or  less  ridiculous,  or  not? 
Does  n't  it  meet  the  case  ?  Does  n't  it  let  the  white  man 
vote,  and  does  n't  it  stop  the  negro  from  voting  ?  —  and  is  n't 
that  what  we  came  here  to  accomplish  ?  "  Thus  these  lead 
ers  themselves  brand  their  constitutions  as  frauds,  and  even 
glory  in  the  fraudulent  work.  But  Congress  is  master  of  the 
situation. 

So  that  it  matters  not  a  particle  whether  the  Southern 
constitutions  are  constitutional  in  whole  or  in  part,  if  the 
fact  exists  that  there  are  bodies  of  "  the  male  inhabitants,  .  .  . 
21  years  of  age  and  citizens  of  the  United  States  "  in  sufficient 
numbers  to  attract  attention  and  destroy  the  equilibrium  of 
21  321 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

representation  in  the  government,  and  who  have  not  "  par 
ticipated  in  rebellion  or  other  crime,"  and  yet  are  denied 
"  the  right  to  vote " ;  in  whatsoever  state  such  bodies  of 
"  male  citizens  "  are  denied  "  the  right  to  vote,"  it  is  the 
imperative  duty  of  Congress  to  reduce  "  the  basis  of  repre 
sentation  therein  to  the  proportion  which  the  number  of 
such  male  citizens  shall  bear  to  the  whole  number  of  male 
citizens  21  years  of  age  in  such  state." 

The  enforcement  of  this  section  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  will  prevent  the  republic  from  being  ruled  by 
an  oligarchy.  For  although  an  oligarchy  may  seize  states 
and  under  one  pretence  or  another  disfranchise  large  bodies 
of  the  citizens,  it  cannot  count  those  so  disfranchised  as  a 
basis  of  its  representation  in  the  government.  This  too 
must  promote  and  strengthen  the  broader  liberty  of  the 
people. 

Mr.  Hardwick  of  Georgia,  in  a  recent  speech  in  the  Con 
gress,  said  :  "  If  Congress  should  be  unwise  enough  to  elect  to 
exercise  this  discretionary  power  vested  in  it  by  section  5  of 
Article  XIV,  it  will  not  only  be  the  most  serious  strain  of  the 
present  cordial  relations  so  happily  existing  between  the  sec 
tions,  but  it  will  require  a  readjustment  of  the  basis  of  rep 
resentation  that  will  not  start  at  the  Potomac  and  at  Rio 
Grande,  but  will  stretch  from  Hatteras  to  the  Golden  Gate, 
from  Maine  to  Florida,  and  will  embrace  in  its  majestic  sweep 
every  state  and  Territory  in  the  Union  and  even  our  new 
islands  of  the  sea."  This  threat  is  characteristically  Southern. 

The  only  "  cordial  relations  "  that  can  bind  together  the 
sections  of  a  republic  are  based  on  the  equality  of  representa 
tion.  Inequality  destroys  cordiality ;  they  cannot  coexist. 
The  fundamental  guarantee  of  "cordial  relations,"  between 
the  sections  is  the  equal  obedience  of  the  sections  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

In  equalizing  representation,  it  would  be  fair,  wise,  and 
just  to  yield  every  Southern  state  full  representation  for  its 

322 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

entire  white  citizenship,  supplemented  by  the  number  of 
colored  citizens  actually  enrolled  as  voters.  This  informa 
tion  is  easily  accessible.  As  the  laws  and  constitution  of 
some  of  the  Southern  states  were  made  for  the  expressed 
purpose,  openly  and  publicly  avowed,  of  disfranchising  the 
colored  citizens,  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  follow  the  in 
tricacies,  windings,  and  tricks  as  to  how  the  details  are  worked 
out.  The  main  purpose  and  results  only  are  worthy  of 
consideration. 

The  Northern  states  should  have  identically  the  same 
basis ;  its  entire  white  citizenship  plus  its  registered  colored 
votes.  But  as  no  colored  man  in  the  North  is  disfranchised, 
practically  the  whole  colored  citizenship  would  be  counted. 

The  South  is  estopped  from  all  complaints,  because  it 
would  have  the  full  and  unrestricted  power  to  enlarge,  at 
any  time,  its  electorate  and  thus  increase  its  representation. 

Reducing  Southern  representation  would  not  of  course 
settle  the  question  of  suffrage,  but  it  would  be  a  start  in 
the  right  direction.  It  would  chill  the  disposition  of  the 
states  for  wholesale  disfranchisement.  States  covet  more, 
not  less  power.  The  struggle  will  go  on  until  impartial  laws 
shall  regulate  the  suffrage  in  every  state.  The  better  South 
will  assert  itself.  The  Fifteenth  Amendment  is  an  impreg 
nable  fortress,  and  no  law  which  the  reactionist's  ingenuity 
:an  invent  can  keep  all  colored  men  from  the  ballot-box. 
No  one  who  now  has  the  franchise  can  lose  it. 

The  work  of  the  schoolroom  will  gradually  remove  all  the 
artificial  barriers  which  now  exist  and  the  approach  to  the 
ballot-box  will  be  greatly  facilitated. 

Some  fears  have  been  expressed  that  the  Southern  leaders 
might  even  accept  reduction  of  representation  in  order  to  get 
rid  of  the  negro  vote,  and  that  such  reduction  might  be  con 
strued  as  an  endorsement  by  the  nation  of  wholesale  dis 
franchisement.  These  fears  are  illogical  and  groundless,  and  are 
entirely  without  a  basis  in  reason,  political  science,  or  history. 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

In  the  first  place,  the  Southern  leaders  would  oppose  re 
duction  of  representation  to  the  limit  of  their  power,  for 
the  sake  of  their  own  political  salvation.  But  even  if  they 
should  accept  it,  it  must  still  be  remembered  that  the  South 
ern  leaders  are  not  the  Southern  people,  but  only  a  very  small 
fraction  of  them.  A  majority  of  the  whites  would  not  view 
reduction  of  representation  with  the  same  complacency  that 
they  show  for  the  disfranchisement  of  the  colored  race.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  many  Southerners  are  opposed  to  wholesale 
disfranchisement,  and  regard  the  "  grandfather  clause  "as  a 
subterfuge  reproachful  to  Southern  manhood.  The  inflamed 
South  is  not  the  sober  South.  The  sober  South  would  never 
give  up  one  third  of  its  representatives  in  Congress  and  also 
in  the  electoral  college  in  order  to  uphold  a  flagrantly  un 
moral  and  disastrous  policy.  More  than  this  —  the  sober 
South  would  shrink  from  thus  publicly  and  directly  impeach 
ing  itself  in  the  eyes  of  civilization  and  Christianity. 

There  should  be  no  temporizing  or  half-way  measures,  but 
reduction  should  be  based,  in  full,  on  that  proportion  of  the 
colored  population  not  represented  on  the  list  of  registered 
voters.  The  South  being  thus  shorn  of  one  third  of  its 
power,  it  would  be  much  easier  to  enact  such  additional  laws 
as  the  nation  may  adjudge  necessary  to  enforce  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment.  But  nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that 

O 

the  sober  South  will  break  away  from  the  reactionists  at  this 
point,  or  before  it  is  reached,  rather  than  provoke  the  nation 
to  the  enactment  of  further  legislation.  It  is  already  realized 
that  the  madness  of  the  reactionists  has  produced  the  woes  of 
the  South.  As  sure  as  the  sun  shall  shine  the  Southern  people, 
under  a  patriotic,  noble-hearted,  and  broad-minded  leadership, 
will  rise  in  revolt  and  overthrow  the  "  Jim  Crowites "  andj 
reactionists  and  wipe  out  any  policy  which  would  thus  de-r 
stroy  the  power,  dignity,  and  standing  of  their  states,  and 
which  would  relegate  such  states  to  the  position  of  "  pocket- 
boroughs,"  or  "  sage-brush  "  communities. 

324 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

In  the  second  place,  the  reduction  of  representation  would 
not  be  an  endorsement  of  wholesale  disfranchisement,  but 
only  the  application  of  the  penalty.  If  a  man  commits  a 
theft  or  any  other  offence,  and  the  law  is  invoked  and  he  is 
duly  punished,  no  sane  person  would  ever  pretend  that  the 
invocation  of  the  law  and  the  punishment  of  the  offender  is 
an  endorsement  of  the  crime.  Such  reasoning  would  over 
turn  civilization.  Penalties  operate  correctionallv,  and  not 
as  endorsements  of  offences  whatever  their  character.  Re 
duction  of  representation  would  punish,  and  also,  at  the  same 
time,  work  out  the  correction  of  the  offence  of  wholesale  dis 
franchisement.  How  ?  Such  reduction  would  have  the  im 
mediate  effect  of  making  the  entire  colored  population  a 
valuable  asset  in  the  political  life  of  the  South ;  whereas,  as 
things  stand  now,  the  colored  man  is  a  political  nonentity. 

The  reactionists  disfranchised  him  because  they  saw  that 
under  present  conditions  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by  allow 
ing  him  the  ballot,  and  that  by  denying  him  the  ballot  noth 
ing  was  to  be  lost.  The  colored  man  was  thus  counted,  in  so 
far  as  his  own  recognition  was  concerned,  simply  as  a  cipher 
in  the  political  equation  of  Southern  life.  In  politics,  as  in 
other  matters,  things  go  by  values.  In  the  economy  of  life, 
everything  of  value  is  put  to  use.  Make  the  negro  of  politi 
cal  value  to  the  South,  just  as  he  is  of  industrial  value,  and 
the  South  will  protect  his  ballot  because  it  will  serve  its 
interests  to  do  so.  Reduction  of  representation  would  in 
stantly  reverse  present  conditions  and  put  a  political  value 
on  the  head  of  every  colored  man.  The  reactionists  could 
not  then  treat  the  colored  man  as  a  cipher,  and  at  the  same 
time  profit  by  the  full  representation  based  on  the  colored 
population  to  strengthen  their  oligarchy.  The  colored  man 
would  have  inherent  political  value  ;  and  to  secure  its  bene 
fits,  the  South  would  be  compelled  to  recognize  his  right  to 
cast  his  own  ballot.  He  would  thus  be  transformed  from  a 
cipher  into  a  unit ;  from  a  mere  abstraction  into  a  political 

325 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

personality.  His  ballot  would  be  restored  under  just  and 
equal  laws,  and  he  would  be  protected  and  assisted  in  the 
wise  use  of  it  by  the  conservative  and  patriotic  elements. 
For  it  would  mean  five  more  votes  in  Congress  and  as 
many  in  the  electoral  college  for  Georgia ;  four  votes  each 
for  North  Carolina,  Texas,  South  Carolina,  Virginia,  and 
Alabama  ;  five  more  for  Mississippi,  and  a  corresponding 
increase  in  other  states  according  to  the  colored  population. 
Is  any  man  crazy  enough  to  believe  that  a  majority  of  the 
white  people  of  South  Carolina,  that  old  and  historic  com 
monwealth,  rich  in  renown  and  prestige,  would  surrender  four 
of  her  seven  representatives  in  the  Congress  and  the  electoral 
college  at  the  beck  of  Senator  Tillman,  simply  to  carry  out 
a  degrading,  unmoral,  and  unrighteous  policy,  injurious  alike 
to  its  white  and  colored  citizens ;  or  that  Mississippi  would 
give  up  five  of  her  eight  Congressmen  and  electors  at  the 
dictation  of  Governor  Vardaman  ;  or  that  the  great  state  of 
Georgia  would  cut  her  congressional  and  electoral  delegation 
in  half  to  humor  the  frenzy  of  the  Honorable  John  Temple 
Graves,  or  as  a  tribute  to  the  social-equality  bogyman  ? 

Such  a  condition,  even  if  it  were  possible,  would  only  be 
transient.  It  would  provoke  revolt.  The  liberal  and  patri 
otic  elements  would  desire  and  could  have  no  better  platform 
than  such  an  issue  on  which  to  appeal  to  the  people  to  save 
the  prestige,  power,  and  honor  of  their  commonwealths  and 
demand  fair  and  equal  laws  for  all  the  people. 

When  the  white  people  of  the  South  shall  thus  approach 
the  suffrage  question  with  honest  purposes,  and  in  the  broad 
spirit  of  patriotism  and  humanity,  and  enact  fair  and  honest 
election  laws,  taking  every  needful  precaution  to  insure  good 
government  by  the  rule  of  intelligence,  thrift,  character,  and 
property  ;  punishing  alike  the  man  who  sells  his  vote  and  the 
man  who  bribes  it ;  prohibiting  the  use  of  money  in  cam 
paigns  except  for  specified  purposes  ;  eliminating  from  poli 
tics  the  ignorant,  vicious,  shiftless,  and  criminal  classes  whether 

326 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

white  or  colored  ;  discarding  the  unholy  and  un-American 
policy  of  the  reactionists  in  violating  the  Constitution  and 
subjugating  the  colored  race;  assuring  the  colored  man  of 
the  protection  of  his  civil  and  political  rights ;  giving  him 
considerate  treatment,  recognizing  his  right  to  representa 
tion  in  the  government  and  so  dividing  his  vote,  —  they  shall 
have  the  hearty  good-will,  applause,  and  benediction  of  every 
honest  man  and  patriotic  citizen  of  the  land ;  for  the  race 
question  will  then  be  solved,  and  in  the  only  way  that  it  can 
be  solved,  by  respecting  the  ethics  of  the  Christ  and  by  the 
due  observance  of  the  organic  law  of  the  republic ;  and  it 
will  be  removed  from  the  arena  of  politics. 

The  solemn  appeals  and  warnings  of  two  eminent  Amer 
icans  may  fittingly  close  this  chapter.  One  is  of  the  South, 
the  other  of  the  North.  Both  are  of  national  reputation, 
and  represent  the  best  type  of  American  manhood. 

Ex-Governor  William  O.  Bradley,  of  Kentucky,  in  a  recent 
address,  said :  "  Men  of  the  North,  we  come  from  the  battle 
field,  consecrated  to  freedom  with  the  blood  of  your  brave 
sons.  In  their  names,  and  by  their  memories,  the  disfran 
chised  South  appeals  to  you  for  justice.  Shall  it  be  said  that 
your  sons  marched  and  fought  and  died  in  vain  ?  Shall  it 
be  said  that  a  nation  can  exist  part  slave  and  part  free? 
Are  people  free  who  are  forced  to  bear  the  burden  and  yet 
denied  the  highest  privilege  of  citizenship?  If  it  be  true 
that  warrant  may  not  be  found  in  the  Constitution  to  pre 
vent  disfranchisement,  then  we  beg  that  you  no  longer  permit 
the  disfranchised  and  oppressed  to  be  estimated  for  the  pur 
pose  of  increasing  the  electoral  strength  of  their  oppressors.11 

And  the  late  Mr.  James  G.  Blaine,  in  the  North  American 
Review,  after  affirming  that  the  South  "  wrongfully  gains  " 
a  "  great  number  of  electoral  votes,11  "  by  reason  of  its 
unlawful  seizure  of  political  power,11  goes  on  to  say  :  "  Our 
institutions  have  been  tried  by  the  fiery  test  of  war  and  have 
survived.  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  attempt  to 

327 


THE   AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

govern  the  country  by  the  power  of  a  '  solid  South '  unlaw 
fully  consolidated,  can  be  successful.  No  thoughtful  man  can 
consider  these  questions  without  deep  concern.  The  mighty 
power  of  a  republic  with  a  continent  for  its  possession,  can 
only  be  wielded  permanently  by  being  wielded  honestly. 
In  a  fair  and  generous  struggle  for  partisan  power  let  us  not 
forget  those  issues  and  those  ends  which  are  above  party. 
Organized  wrong  will  ultimately  be  met  by  organized  resist 
ance.  .  .  .  Impartial  suffrage  is  our  theory.  It  must  become 
our  practice.  Any  party  of  American  citizens  can  bear  to 
be  defeated.  No  party  of  American  citizens  will  bear  to  be 
defrauded.  The  men  who  are  interested  in  a  dishonest  count 
are  units.  The  men  who  are  interested  in  an  honest  count 
are  millions.  I  wish  to  speak  for  the  millions  of  all  political 
parties,  and  in  their  name  to  declare  that  the  republic  must 
be  strong  enough,  and  shall  be  strong  enough,  to  protect  the 
weakest  of  its  citizens  in  all  their  rights.  To  this  simple  and 
sublime  principle  let  us,  in  the  lofty  language  of  Burke, 
'  attest  the  retiring  generations,  let  us  attest  the  advancing 
generations,  between  which,  as  a  link  in  the  great  chain  of 
eternal  order,  we  stand.' " 

And  there  may  be  added  these  forceful  words  from  the 
New  York  World :  "  If  the  Southern  Democrats  who  are 
forcing  these  measures  do  not  perceive  their  ultimate  inevita 
ble  consequences,  they  are  lacking  in  political  understanding. 
The  preponderating  vote  of  the  Northern  states  will  not  con 
sent  permanently  to  representation  in  Congress  and  in  the 
electoral  college  of  millions  of  disfranchised  inhabitants  in 
the  Southern  states.  Especially  is  this  true  when  the  dis 
franchising  qualifications  apply  and  are  intended  to  operate 
not  against  illiteracy  or  shiftlessness  or  unworthiness,  but 
solely  against  color.  .  .  . 

"  Back,  however,  of  the  questions  of  political  expediency 
and  of  the  equality  growing  out  of  the  representation  of 
non-voters  is  the  deeper  question  of  constitutional  guarantees 

328 


THE  NATIONAL  DUTY  TO  THE  NEGRO 

and  of  the  anomaly  and  danger  in  a  republic  of  an  enormous 
number  of  citizens  disfranchised  for  their  color  alone.'11 

Colonel  T.  VV.  Higginson  read  a  poem  before  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  Society  at  the  late  Commencement  of  Harvard 
College,  which  concludes  as  follows  :  — 

**  The  humbler  friends  who  ne'er  betrayed  a  trust, 
And  never  in  defeat  yet  turned  their  back, 
Stood  firm  till  gunshot  strewed  them  in  the  dust. 
Why  need  they  pardon  ?     For  their  faces  black  ! 

"  A  hundred  thousand  negroes  filled  your  ranks, 
When  most  depleted,  with  their  manhood  strong. 
Shall  we  not  still  keep  warm  the  nation's  thanks 
While  lingering  days  those  modest  lives  prolong  ? 

"  They  saved  you  ;  charged  Fort  Wagner  ;  they  held  out, 
Held  the  coast  safe  that  Sherman  might  pass  through, 
You  built  Shaw's  statue;  can  you  calmly  doubt 
That  those  who  marched  with  him  should  vote,  like  you  ? 

"  '  Not  fit  to  live,'  some  say  ;  '  an  alien  race, 
Oh,  set  them  all  aside  ! '  advisers  cry. 
'  Their  birth  a  shame,  their  color  a  disgrace.' 
Not  fit  to  live  ?    You  trusted  them  to  die  ! 

**  Not  on  these  walls  your  tribute  need  be  paid, 
But  in  that  outer  world  your  teachings  rule  ; 
Here  by  your  thoughts  a  nobler  conscience  made 
Gives  to  the  nation's  life  a  loftier  school. 

"  To  praise  one's  self  by  flattering  all  the  great  — 
How  easy  !     Worthier  honors  then  were  won 
When  Harvard  kept  her  cherished  laurels  late 
And  placed  them  on  a  humbler  Washington. 

"  Within  this  hall  she  cried,  *  Protect  the  low,' 
Till  all  earth's  children  from  this  life  are  whirled 
To  see  fulfilled  the  debts  we  vainly  owe, 
And  find  God's  justice  in  a  nobler  world. " 


CHAPTER  X 
PUBLIC  OPINION  OMNIPOTENT 

PRINCE  TALLEYRAND,  probably  the  most  resource 
ful,  astute,  and  remarkable  European  diplomatist  of 
his  day,  said :  "  There  is  one  who  is  wiser  than  Vol 
taire,  and  has  more  understanding  than  Napoleon  and  all 
ministers;  and  that  one  is  —  Public  Opinion." 

In  the  equitable  settlement  of  complex  and  vital  issues 
incident  to  the  life  of  a  free  and  self-governing  nation  —  the 
arbitrament  of  the  sword  being  eliminated  —  public  opinion 
is  the  court  of  last  resort.  Its  mandates  are  imperative  and 
final.  From  its  inexorable  decrees  there  is  no  escape.  It 
inspires,  formulates,  and  executes  the  laws  of  a  people.  The 
public  opinion  of  the  nation  is  and  of  necessity  must  be  para 
mount  :  the  peace  and  prosperity,  the  honor  and  dignity,  the 
good  order  and  safety,  and  the  perpetuity  and  sovereignty  of 
the  nation  are  dependent  on  this.  For  the  laws  of  a  self- 
governing  nation  represent  the  consensus  of  the  public  opin 
ion  of  the  nation. 

If  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi  can  violate  with  open 
defiance  and  impunity  certain  sections  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  at  will,  what  is  to  prevent  Utah  and 
Wyoming  from  overthrowing  other  sections,  and  still  other 
states  from  nullifying  remaining  sections  ?  How  much  of 
the  Constitution  is  to  be  left  intact  ? 

If  this  wonderful  instrument,  the  grandest  charter  of 
liberty  on  the  face  of  the  earth  —  "  the  hope  of  man  "  —  can 
thus  be  torn  into  tatters  and  threads,  of  what  avail  is  the  con 
sensus  of  public  opinion,  the  saving  salt  of  a  nation's  life  ? 
What  becomes  of  national  honor,  authority,  sovereignty? 
When  the  public  opinion  of  this  nation  shall  cease  to  be 
sovereign — then  the  republic  is  dead.  The  public  opinion 

330 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

of  this  nation,  in  the  free  exercise  of  its  plenary  and  sovereign 
powers,  removed  the  fetters  of  slavery,  and  made  the  colored 
people  citizens;  acknowledging  to  them  the  birthright  which 
belongs  to  every  man  —  "  the  inalienable  rights  "  of  "  life, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness" ;  and  it  is  the  preroga 
tive  and  binding  duty  of  the  nation  to  make  the  full  enjoy 
ment  of  these  natural  rights  and  privileges  secure  and 
complete. 

The  United  States  being  a  nation,  the  allegiance  and 
loyalty  of  the  citizen  is  not  to  a  state  or  section,  but  to  the 
nation.  It  must  necessarily  follow,  as  a  corollary,  that  the 
highest,  the  supreme,  prerogative  of  the  nation  is  the  pro 
tection  of  the  citizen.  The  relation  is  reciprocal.  This  in 
volves  the  very  life  of  the  nation  itself.  In  the  protection 
of  its  citizens  the  nation  finds  its  own  protection. 

President  Lincoln,  in  the  heat  of  the  antislavery  agitation, 
declared:  "This  nation  cannot  continue  to  exist  half  free 
and  half  slave."  He  was  right. 

President  Garfield,  in  his  inaugural  address,  twenty  years 
after  the  slaveholders1  unsuccessful  rebellion  against  the  re 
public,  said:  "There  is  no  middle  ground  for  the  negro  race 
between  slavery  and  equal  citizenship."  He  was  right. 

There  was  no  peace  with  the  nation  half  free  and  half 
slave.  There  can  be  no  peace  with  the  nation  half  free  and 
half  serf.  "Men  may  cry  peace!  peace!  but  there  is  no 
peace."  The  extreme  and  unreasonable,  the  unchristian 
and  un-American  attitude  of  the  South  is  "the  fly  in  the 
ointment,"  the  disturber  of  the  public  peace. 

No  one  will  deny  that  it  ought  to  be,  and  is,  a  most  ardent 
and  even  sacred  desire  of  every  good  citizen,  that  peace  and 
concord,  unity  and  good  fellowship  shall  exist  between  the 
several  sections  of  the  country  and  among  all  of  its  inhabi 
tants.  But  the  essential,  the  elementary  condition  of  this 
consummation  most  devoutly  to  be  wished  for,  is  a  fair  and 
faithful,  a  just  and  honorable  administration  of  the  law  for 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

all  the  people  "without  regard  to  race,  color  or  previous 
condition  of  servitude." 

The  policy  pursued  by  the  South,  and  portrayed  in  these 
pages  and  proved  by  evidence  unquestioned  and  incontrover 
tible —  a  policy  of  mob  rule  and  lynch  law;  oppressive,  pre 
scriptive,  and  unlawful  legislation ;  harsh  persecutions  and 
general  ostracism;  and  debasement  of  all  colored  people, 
regardless  of  their  moral  worth,  their  thrift  and  industry, 
their  superior  mental  endowments,  their  value  to  the  com 
munity,  or  their  service  and  sacrifices  for  the  nation  in  the 
storm  and  stress  of  war  —  is  not  constructive  of  the  peace  of 
the  nation,  but  on  the  contrary  is  destructive  of  the  very 
foundations  of  peace. 

When  one  class  of  citizens  seize  local  governments  and 
inflict  gross  wrongs  and  inhumanities  on  another  class  of 
equal  citizens,  in  defiance  of  the  organic  law,  it  is  a  matter 
of  concern  to  the  whole  people.  The  familiar  phrases  "  hands 
off,"  "no  interference,"  "we  will  settle  the  question  to  suit 
ourselves,"  smack  of  haughtiness  but  not  wisdom,  of  audacity 
but  not  honesty,  and  will  deceive  no  one. 

"Hands  off'"  —  when  the  liberty  and  hope  of  ten  millions 
of  American  citizens  are  being  openly  assassinated  ? 

"  No  interference  "  —  when  these  people  are  being  stripped 
and  despoiled  of  every  essential  manhood  right  of  a  free 
American  ? 

"We  will  settle  the  question  to  suit  ourselves"  —  when 
that  settlement  leads  to  serfdom  with  abuses  even  blacker 
and  more  bestial  than  slavery  ? 

If  a  colored  man  pre-eminent  in  character  and  of  superior 
talent,  a  high  officer  of  the  government  is  invited  to  a  func 
tion  at  the  White  House,  or  another  of  admitted  ability  and 
standing  is  appointed  to  a  Federal  office,  the  churlish  and 
childish  plaint  is  made:  "It  is  an  insult  to  the  white 
people  of  the  South."  A  social  boycott  is  flauntingly  pro 
claimed  against  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  the 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

demand  made  that  he  shall  "be  treated  in  all  respects  by 
Southern  people  precisely  as  if  he  were  a  negro,  and  with 
absolute  indication  that  he  is  not  of  our  race,  or  in  any  re 
spect  socially  an  equal  with  us  or  a  fit  associate  for  us  or 
any  of  us."  The  press  reports  show  that  many  leading 
Southerners  have  absented  themselves  from  the  social  func 
tions  at  the  White  House,  as  if  by  this  childish  act  they 
could  coerce  the  President  to  violate  the  liberty  and  rights 
of  citizens  whom  his  oath  of  office  binds  him  to  protect. 

If  a  Northern  man  has  the  temerity  to  make  a  manly  plea 
for  fair  and  honorable  treatment  of  the  colored  people  and 
condemns  oppression,  he  is  met  with  the  charge  of  "  stirring 
up  sectional  strife",  "waving  the  bloody  shirt  %  and  is  de 
nounced  as  the  "  fool-friend  "  of  the  negro. 

The  social  and  business  boycott  is  rigorously  applied  to 
any  white  person  in  the  South  who  may  treat  the  educated 
and  cultured  negro  with  the  courtesy  due  a  gentleman.  The 
Northern  man  residing  in  the  South  and  who  is  the  victim  of 
this  un-American  code  and  who  does  not  show  the  colored 
man  the  kindness  or  courtesy  he  would  show  if  residing  in 
the  North,  is  paraded  as  being  as  hostile  as  the  Southerner 
to  the  recognition  of  the  colored  man. 

Principal  Booker  T.  Washington,  admittedly  the  most 
distinguished  Southerner  living — and  pronounced  by  Mr. 
Carnegie  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  the  age,  registers  in  an 
Indiana  hotel :  the  next  morning  a  white  chambermaid  re 
fuses  to  make  up  his  bed,  because  a  "nigger"  had  slept  in  it. 
She  at  once  becomes  the  heroine  of  every  "  Jim  Crowite  "  in 
the  South.  Letters  of  congratulation  are  poured  in  upon  her. 
Subscriptions  are  made  up  in  various  parts  of  the  South,  and 
thousands  of  dollars  are  showered  upon  her.  Her  coura 
geous  act  consisted  in  offering  an  unprovoked  insult  to  an  un 
offending  gentleman.  Mr.  Washington  sends  his  daughter 
to  a  Northern  boarding-school :  the  demand  is  made  that 
Southern  white  girls  shall  leave  the  school. 

333 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

An  Italian,  keeping  a  restaurant  in  a  Mississippi  town, 
sells  a  colored  man  a  meal ;  his  place  is  immediately  raided 
and  he  is  driven  from  his  home.  Any  incident  is  seized  upon 
to  inflame  passions  against  the  colored  man. 

During  the  riots  in  New  Orleans,  a  Northern  white  man 
was  arrested,  and  fined  twenty-five  dollars  for  protesting 
against  the  killing  of  innocent  negroes  and  admitting  to 
the  judge  he  had  said  that  "A  negro  in  body  and  soul 
is  as  good  as  a  white  man."  At  Memphis,  Tennessee,  a 
Northern  white  man  who  justified  President  Roosevelt  in 
dining  Principal  Booker  T.  Washington  was  promptly 
thrashed.  And  the  cry  has  gone  forth  that  "  no  quarter " 
shall  be  given  to  any  one  who  shall  dare  to  interpose  against 
this  policy.  Is  this  not  choking  Southern  ideas  down  North 
ern  throats  with  a  remarkable  vehemence  ? 

These  things  are  sufficient  to  cause  the  patriots  of  1861  to 
turn  in  their  graves.  Did  they  destroy  slavery  and  save  the 
Union  only  to  have  the  cardinal  doctrine  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy  re-enacted  into  law  throughout  the  Southland, 
and  forced  on  the  nation  as  slavery  was  forced  on  it  ?  This 
is  not  a  basis  which  makes  for  the  peace  of  the  republic,  nor 
will  the  people  be  silent  in  the  consummation  of  such  a  sin 
against  Heaven  and  crime  against  humanity. 

The  American  people  lack  neither  courage  nor  conscience. 
The  issues  thus  raised  must  be  bravely  met  and  overcome,  as 
have  other  issues  equally  perplexing  and  menacing. 

The  South  was  wrong,  even  if  it  was  united,  on  the  slavery 
question  —  but  public  opinion  destroyed  slavery. 

The  South  was  wrong,  even  if  it  was  united,  in  making  war 
on  the  republic  —  but  public  opinion  saved  the  republic. 

The  South  was  wrong,  even  if  it  was  united,  in  its  threats 
to  shoot  colored  soldiers  and  their  white  officers  when  cap 
tured  —  but  public  opinion  kept  the  colored  soldiers  on  the 
firing  line  and  protected  them. 

The  South  was  wrong,  even  if  it  was  united,  in  passing  the 

334 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

Black  Code  —  but  public  opinion  destroyed  the  Black 
Code. 

The  South  was  wrong,  even  if  it  was  united,  in  its  hos 
tility  to  the  great  measures  of  reconstruction  —  but  public 
opinion  achieved  the  reconstruction  it  wanted. 

The  South  is  wrong,  even  if  it  is  united,  in  the  extreme  un- 
American,  and  unholy  attitude  assumed  to-day  —  and  public 
opinion  will  be  found  equal  to  the  task  of  dealing  with  it. 

Public  opinion  spoke  through  the  ballot-box  in  the  na 
tional  election  held  in  the  fall  of  1904.  The  overwhelming 
vote  given  in  support  of  the  victorious  candidate  attests  the 
adherence  of  the  people  to  the  principles  advocated  in  these 
pages.  Never  before  in  the  history  of  the  republic  have  the 
people,  the  true  American  sovereigns,  given  such  an  emphatic 
demonstration  of  their  power  through  the  instrumentality 
of  the  ballot-box,  and  so  splendidly  and  gloriously  confirmed 
their  devotion  to  the  principles  of  liberty  and  constitutional 
government. 

Every  state  in  which  there  was  a  free  and  fair  expression 
of  public  opinion  was  carried  by  President  Roosevelt  by  ma 
jorities  which  daze  the  political  mind.  New  York  gave 
175,000  majority,  Illinois  300,000,  Michigan  206,000,  Kansas 
126,000,  Minnesota  126,000,  Wisconsin  130,000,  Nebraska 
85,000,  Massachusetts  92,000,  California  125,000,  Ohio 
240,000,  Connecticut  75,000,  Indiana  nearly  100,000,  Wash 
ington  72,000,  and  Pennsylvania  over  500,000.  In  ten 
states  his  majority  ranged  from  100,000  to  more  than 
500,000 ;  and  his  combined  majorities  in  fifteen  states  ex 
ceeded  Judge  Parker's  total  vote. 

The  total  vote  cast  in  the  thirteen  Southern  states,  includ 
ing  Maryland,  which  Judge  Parker  carried,  was  2,033,226,  of 
which  he  received  1,238,878.  The  total  vote  polled  in  the 
thirty-two  states  carried  by  President  Roosevelt  was 
11,475,270.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  South, 
while  casting  only  15  per  cent  of  the  whole  number  of  votes 

335 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

polled,  nevertheless  has  34  per  cent  of  the  presidential  elec 
tors.  About  one-third  of  these  electors  are  based  on  the 
colored  population,  who  in  large  measure  are  disfranchised  by 
trick  election  laws.  This  is  like  killing  the  sheep,  and  yet 
still  expecting  to  possess  and  be  benefited  by  the  annual  crop 
of  wool. 

The  continuance  of  such  gross  inequality  invites  gravest 
consequences  in  case  of  a  close  election.  It  is  a  most  impres 
sive  fact  that  President  Roosevelt's  majorities  alone  in  the 
four  states  of  New  York,  Illinois,  Ohio,  and  Pennsylvania 
were  greater  in  the  aggregate  than  the  total  vote  cast  for 
Judge  Parker  in  the  thirteen  Southern  states,  including 
Maryland.  President  Roosevelt's  popular  majority,  at  large, 
was  2,547,578,  being  more  than  twice  as  great  as  the  whole 
number  of  votes  polled  by  his  opponent  in  the  "  solid  South." 

The  political  cataclysm  struck  and  shook  to  the  centre  the 
border  states,  and  West  Virginia  and  Missouri  enrolled 
themselves  on  the  side  of  progress  and  humanity ;  Maryland 
half  yielded,  and  "  Old  Kentucky  "  weakened. 

The  former  seceding  states  stand  alone,  isolated,  embit 
tered,  out  of  touch  with  the  liberal  and  progressive  ideas  of 
the  sister  states,  without  reconciliation  to  the  popular  will, 
and  refusing  to  keep  step  in  the  march  of  civilization  and  to 
the  "  music  of  the  Union."  The  following  post-election  ex 
pressions  from  leaders  of  the  "  solid  South  "  will  disclose  the 
poverty  of  the  South,  in  its  public  life,  in  capable,  sober, 
constructive,  statesmanlike  leadership.  The  Louisville 
Courier- Journal  says  :  "  From  Theodore  Roosevelt  we  ask  no 
quarter  and  expect  none.  He  is  infinitely  a  worse  enemy  of 
the  white  men  and  women  of  the  South  than  any  of  the  radi 
cal  leaders  of  the  past." 

In  the  Huntsville,  Alabama,  Mercury,  Mr.  Robert  T.  Bently 
says  :  "  It  appearing  that  Theodore  Roosevelt,  the  head  and 
front  of  the  Republican  party,  which  represents  the  danger 
ous  policies  of  civilization,  protective  tariff,  imperialism,  and 

336 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

social  equality,  has  been  elected  President  of  the  United 
States  by  a  strictly  sectional  vote,  and  has  established  an  in 
surmountable  barrier  between  the  North  and  South,  I  feel 
constrained  to  express  my  humble  opinion,  as  a  true  and 
patriotic  American  citizen  of  the  South,  that,  if  the  Republi 
can  party  should  continue  its  dangerous  policies  for  the  next 
four  years  and  should  triumph  in  the  next  national  election, 
the  thirteen  states  which  voted  for  Alton  B.  Parker  should 
secede  from  the  union  and  by  force  of  arms  resist  an  oppres 
sion  which  means  the  early  fall  of  our  great  republic." 

In  an  interview,  General  John  W.  A.  Sanford,  one  of  the 
oldest  and  best-known  citizens  of  the  South,  says  that  "  the 
South  is  practically  ostracized.  There  is  one  policy  for 
the  South  to  pursue  that  it  may  retain  its  prestige,  its  honor, 
and  all  it  holds  dear  in  its  social  as  well  as  political  life. 
Abjure  national  politics,  participate  in  no  future  national 
political  conventions.  Allow  the  Northern  Democrats  and 
Northern  Republicans  to  hold  their  own  conventions  and 
vote  their  own  tickets.  Let  the  South  select  and  elect  its 
own  electoral  ticket  and  vote  in  the  electoral  college  for  that 
party  or  candidate  whose  principles  are  more  in  accord  with 
our  own  policies,  and  whose  policies  will  promote  in  the 
greatest  degree  the  peace,  power,  and  prosperity  of  the 
Southern  people.  And  when  we  become  more  populous  and 
more  wealthy,  the  Northerners  will  court  the  Southerners, 
our  interests  will  be  more  respected,  and  our  views  of  govern 
ment  will  receive  greater  consideration  from  the  political 
parties  of  the  Northern  states." 

The  Atlanta  Journal  says  :  "  Let  the  South  remain  true 
to  its  traditions,  true  to  the  principle  of  white  supremacy, 
true  to  the  principles  of  democracy,  and  let  it  stand  by  itself  in 
national  politics  until  its  support  is  sought  on  its  own  terms" 

The  Journal  and  the  Atlanta  Constitution  also  demand  that 
the  South  shall  nominate  its  own  candidate  for  the  presi 
dency  at  the  next  election. 

22  337 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

Judge  J.  M.  Chilton  says  :  "  We  had  as  well  recognize 
this  position  and  make  the  best  of  it.  In  my  opinion  the 
South  ought  never  again,  at  least  for  several  years  to  come, 
enter  a  national  Democratic  convention  or  any  sort  of 
national  political  convention.  The  Southern  states  which 
have  been  thus  driven  to  solidification  should  hold  a  Southern 
convention  and  align  themselves  with  that  one  of  the  North 
ern  parties  which  will  promise  us  most.  Let  them  fight  it  out 
with  their  own  reds  and  socialists.  Let  the  South  give  its 
aid  to  that  one  of  the  parties  which  is  least  objectionable. 
In  such  a  position  the  South  will  hold  the  balance  of  power, 
and  it  will  not  be  long  before  we  will  be  accorded  the 
position  and  influence  to  which  we  are  justly  entitled." 

The  News  and  Courier,  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  says  : 
"  The  North  was  also  solid,  and  solid  without  cause  ;  solid 
on  sectional  lines  for  a  sectional  party,  a  sectional  candidate, 
and  for  sectional  purposes.11 

The  Columbia  State  declares  that,  "if  trouble  is  provoked, 
the  negroes  will  be  the  chief  sufferers,  and  a  dozen  Roosevelts 
cannot  help  them.'" 

Senator  Car  mack  of  Tennessee  denounces  "  the  pharisaical 
people  of  New  England,"  and  "  the  rotten  politicians  of  the 
North,"  and  "  the  press  of  the  North  "  for  "  misrepresenting 
the  Southern  people." 

The  Honorable  John  Sharp  Williams  of  Mississippi  goes 
to  South  Carolina,  the  cradle  of  the  former  secession,  and 
preaches  a  new  rebellion  against  the  republic.  This  time, 
however,  thanks  to  his  discretion,  it  is  to  be  a  bloodless  war. 
He  advises  the  South  to  uphold  its  nullification  of  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States  by  refusing  to  obey  any  law 
the  sovereign  people  of  the  republic  may  enact  through  their 
representatives  in  Congress  to  equalize  representation. 

The  New  York  World  makes  the  following  comment  on 
Mr.  Williams1  speech :  "  Martyrdom  was  joined  to  nullifica 
tion  in  the  doctrine  of  '  passive  resistance '  which  John 

338 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

Sharp  Williams,  the  Democratic  leader  of  the  House,  preached 
to  the  people  of  Spartanburg,  South  Carolina,  Friday  night. 

"  On  the  assumption  that  Congress  might  reduce  Southern 
representation  in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  the  Four 
teenth  Amendment,  Mr.  Williams  proceeded  to  lay  out  a 
programme  of  '  passive  resistance '  for  the  South.  '  I  know 
of  no  power  on  earth  or  in  heaven,  except  a  direct  interven 
tion  of  God/  he  said,  *  that  can  force  a  state  legislature  to 
pass  a  bill  redistricting  a  state  so  that  it  shall  contain  four 
or  five  or  six  Congressional  districts  instead  of  seven  or 
eight.1 

"  Mr.  Williams  then  advised  the  Southern  states  to  pay 
no  attention  to  an  act  reducing  representation,  if  one  should 
be  passed,  but  to  elect  their  Representatives  on  the  old  basis 
and  send  them  to  Washington.  The  House  would  refuse 
to  seat  them  and  would  withhold  the  payment  of  salaries. 
Judicial  proceedings  could  then  be  instituted  to  determine 
whether  the  act  of  Congress  was  constitutional.  In  the 
mean  time  all  the  Southern  states  would  be  without  repre 
sentation  and  would  stand  as  '  a  visible  object-lesson  '  to  the 
flinty-hearted  brethren  of  the  North.  .  .  . 

"  But  if  the  question  of  reducing  representation  in  accord 
ance  with  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  were  under  serious  con 
sideration  in  Republican  councils,  the  blame  would  rest  upon 
the  South  alone — or,  more  specifically,  upon  the  sinister 
cunning  that  devised  'the  grandfather  clause '  and  the 
other  discriminating  franchise  provisions  in  the  new  state 
constitutions. 

"  Nobody  in  the  North  is  disposed  to  quarrel  with  the 
South  for  disfranchising  ignorance,  for  disfranchising  vicious- 
ness,  or  for  disfranchising  shiftlessness.  The  objection  is  to 
a  policy  that  disfranchises  only  negro  ignorance,  viciousness, 
and  shiftlessness,  while  assuring  the  franchise  to  the  most 
worthless  '  white  trash'  that  can  prove  a  voting  grandfather 
or  get  a  political  committee  to  pay  his  poll  taxes.  .  .  . 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

"  Mr.  Williams  gives  his  whole  case  away  when  he  says 
that  he  and  his  friends  would  be  willing  to  submit  gracefully 
to  reduced  representation  if  the  country  would  repeal  the 
Fifteenth  Amendment.  What  the  Southern  politicians  wish 
to  do  is  not  to  withhold  the  suffrage  from  the  elements  that 
pollute  it,  but  to  disfranchise  forever  such  men  as  Booker 
T.  Washington  and  Professor  Du  Bois,  along  with  the  most 
depraved  levee  loafers,  for  the  crime  of  not  having  white 
skins. 

"  To  such  a  programme  the  country  will  never  give  its 
consent,  and  Mr.  Williams  wastes  his  breath  in  suggesting 
it.  The  American  people  are  not  yet  ready  to  surrender  the 
fundamental  principle  of  their  institutions  —  that  in  respect 
of  political  rights  '  all  men  are  created  equal,'  and  that  '  the 
republic  is  opportunity."*  When  the  South  asks  this  sur 
render  it  is  asking  the  impossible."" 

The  plan  of  Congressman  1—4-33  Williams  (the  numerals 
indicate  the  total  number  of  votes  he  received  in  his  canvass 
for  Congress)  has  about  as  much  common-sense  in  it  as  that 
of  the  man  who  attempted  to  drain  the  ocean  by  emptying 
buckets  of  water  on  the  beach.  The  republic  will  not  be 
coerced,  nor  can  the  government  be  destroyed  by  sulking. 
A  way  will  be  found  under  the  Constitution  to  elect  dele 
gations  at  large,  and  voters  will  be  found  to  vote  for  them. 
The  South  must  repeal  its  "grandfather"  constitutions  and 
other  trick  election  laws  which  defraud  the  people  of  an 
equal  share  in  their  government,  and  enact  fair  laws,  or 
representation  must  be  reduced. 

These  leaders  present  the  South  in  a  pitiable  plight  before 
the  eyes  of  the  world.  It  is  indeed  a  matter  for  deep  lamen 
tation  and  profound  regret  that  a  land  so  wonderfully  blessed 
by  nature,  and  with  the  members  of  one  class  of  its  population, 
at  their  best,  so  hospitable  and  chivalric,  and  with  the  other 
class  so  peaceful,  responsive,  and  hard-toiling,  should  become 
the  prey  of  unbalanced  leaders  and  wild  reactionists.  The 

340 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

justice  which  man  owes  to  man  ;  the  righteousness  which  God 
exacts  of  all ;  the  peace  and  fraternity  which  are  the  nation's 
meed  ;  and  the  love,  charity,  and  helpfulness  which  the  Christ 
teaches  apparently  find  no  place  in  their  minds,  hearts,  or 
works. 

Why  does  not  the  South  accept  with  the  same  heartiness 
and  in  the  same  spirit  of  patriotism  and  fraternity  the  result 
of  the  election  that  has  been  made  manifest  in  every  hamlet 
of  other  sections  of  the  republic  ?  Why  should  it  remain 
offensively  sectional,  to  its  own  detriment  and  the  marring  of 
the  peace  of  the  nation  ?  Why  does  it  cling  so  tenaciously  to 
the  barbarous  traditions  of  slavery  which  are  out  of  harmony 
with  the  age,  repugnant  to  the  national  conscience  and  ideals, 
and  frowned  upon  and  disowned  by  the  whole  civilized  world  ? 

The  Honorable  Thomas  E.  Watson  of  Georgia,  candidate 
of  the  People's  party  for  president  in  the  last  campaign, 
gives  the  philosophy  of  the  matter  in  a  recent  speech  in  say 
ing  :  "  The  politicians  keep  the  negro  question  alive  in  the 
South  to  perpetuate  their  hold  on  public  office.  The  negro 
question  is  the  joy  of  their  lives.  It  is  their  very  existence. 
They  fatten  on  it.  With  one  shout  of  '  nigger ' !  —  they  can 
run  the  native  Democrats  into  their  holes  at  any  hour  of  the 
day."  Nevertheless,  the  tremendous  uprising  of  the  people 
on  election  day  and  the  unprecedented  avalanche  of  ballots 
which  carried  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  the  presidential  chair,  after  a 
campaign  of  abuse  and  detraction,  cannot  fail  to  have  a  so 
bering  effect ;  and  the  prophecy  may  even  be  ventured  that  a 
show  of  firmness  in  upholding  the  Constitution  by  an  aroused 
public  opinion  will  mark  the  opening  of  a  new  era  in  the 
Southland  —  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  dominion  of 
incapable,  rancorous,  implacable  reactionaries.  The  hand 
writing  is  on  the  wall.  The  people  have  spoken.  The 
meaning  of  the  election  is  plain. 

It  means  that  the  Thirteenth,  Fourteenth,  and  Fifteenth 
Amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  are 

341 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

incontestable ;  that  the  liberty  and  citizenship  of  the  colored 
man  are  no  longer  open  to  challenge  and  are  not  to  be  the 
foot-ball  of  "  cheap- John  "  politicians  ;  that  he  shall  take  his 
place  before  the  law  in  common  with  other  races  and  thus 
work  out  his  destiny.  It  means  the  overwhelming  condem 
nation  of  wholesale  disfranchisement,  lynch-law  and  burnings 
at  the  stake,  prescriptive  laws,  the  attempt  to  inaugurate  a 
new  form  of  slavery,  and  the  rampant  and  unbridled  "Jim 
Crowism  "  which  was  constantly  flaunted  in  the  face  of  the 
nation  and  offered  gross  insults  and  indignities  to  the 
President  of  the  United  States. 

For,  indeed,  it  was  not  the  tariff,  nor  the  gold  standard, 
nor  the  trusts,  nor  imperialism,  nor  the  Philippines,  nor  large 
expenditures  for  the  army  and  navy,  nor  all  of  these  com 
bined  that  aroused  and  rallied  the  sovereigns  of  the  land  to 
the  Roosevelt  standard.  The  party  in  opposition  did  not 
propose  any  summary  or  radical  changes  along  any  of  these 
lines.  But  it  was  because  "the  people  loved  him  for  the 
enemies  he  has  made,"  and  because  he  stood  as  firm  as  ad 
amant  against  the  assaults  and  traducings  of  the  reactionists 
and  proclaimed  his  ceaseless  devotion  to  the  ideals  of  liberty 
as  held  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  for  a  republic  of  law,  or 
derly  government,  equal  rights  and  opportunities,  and  "  the 
door  of  hope "  for  all  Americans  without  regard  to  race, 
color,  or  creed,  or  whether  rich  or  poor  —  because  his  per 
sonality  embodied  the  American  ideal. 

The  New  York  World,  which  has  been  repeatedly  quoted, 
is  generally  regarded  as  the  leading  Democratic  organ  of  the 
country.  It  has  always  been  friendly  to  the  South  and  has 
rendered  it  invaluable  services.  No  one  would  accuse  it  of 
leaning  toward  the  colored  man  or  fawning  upon  him.  But 
in  its  discussion  of  the  race  question  it  has  been  fair,  firm, 
and  fearless.  It  has  emphasized  some  thoughts  since  the 
election  which  the  white  people  should  ponder  over,  calmly 
weigh,  and  digest.  In  various  issues  it  says : 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

"  The  American  people  will  never  accept  the  dictum  that 
a  negro  scholar  is  the  inferior  of  a  white  ignoramus,  that  a 
negro  gentleman  is  the  inferior  of  a  white  blackguard,  that  a 
man's  title  to  consideration  rests  on  the  color  of  his  skin  and 
not  on  his  character  and  his  achievements. 

"  The  World  hopes  that  this  little  lesson  has  finally  been 
thoroughly  learned.  .  .  . 

"  Never  before  in  our  history  were  so  many  votes  cast  for 
a  candidate  for  office.  Black  and  white,  Protestant  and 
Catholic,  Jew  and  Gentile,  vied  with  one  another  in  testify 
ing  at  the  ballot-box  their  faith  in  Mr.  Roosevelt's  purposes 
and  their  confidence  in  his  statesmanship.  .  .  . 

"  If  the  South  wishes  to  take  the  negro  question  out  of 
national  politics  the  quickest  way  is  to  stop  burning  negroes 
at  the  stake  and  to  abandon  the  un-American  notion  that  the 
meanest  of  white  scoundrels  is  better  than  the  most  industri 
ous,  intelligent,  honorable  negro. 

"  If  the  race  question  played  any  part  in  the  recent  cam 
paign,  the  South  alone  is  to  blame.  It  was  the  South  that 
raised  the  Booker  T.  Washington  issue.  It  was  the  South 
that  advanced  the  monstrous  doctrine  that  the  better  quali 
fied  a  negro  was  to  hold  a  Federal  office  the  more  objection 
able  was  his  appointment.  .  .  . 

"  You  cannot  convince  the  people  of  the  North  that  it  is  a 
heinous  crime  for  a  President  of  the  United  States  to  lunch 
with  a  Booker  T.  Washington,  whatever  the  color  of  the 
Washington's  skin  may  be.  They  will  no  more  worry  about 
equality  between  American  and  African  than  about  equality 
between  American  and  Chinese,  when  the  President  invites 
the  Chinese  Minister  to  dinner. " 

The  white  people  of  the  South  must  come  back  to  the  first 
principles  of  liberty,  constitutional  government,  and  fraternity. 
They  are  in  fact  and  by  right,  and  should  be  in  spirit,  a  har 
monious  part  of  the  Union  —  cheerfully  co-operating  with 
other  sections  in  enacting  and  administering  just  and  equal 

343 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

laws  and  adding  to  the  moral  grandeur  of  the  republic. 
Isolation  is  a  mistaken  policy.  It  bodes  no  good  to  the 
South.  It  keeps  alive  sectionalism  and  bitterness.  The 
South  is  the  chief  sufferer.  The  policy  is  childish.  It  rests 
absolutely  in  the  power  of  the  South,  and  it  alone,  to  destroy 
sectionalism.  This  will  be  a  truly  harmonious  nation  arid 
the  last  vestige  of  sectionalism  will  disappear  when  the  white 
people  of  the  South,  like  the  people  of  the  North,  shall  ac 
cept  in  good  faith  the  constitutional  amendments  which 
manumitted  the  slave  and  restored  him  to  his  place  in  the 
brotherhood  of  men.  And  in  recornposing  the  relations 
between  the  races  there  are  two  elemental  truths  which 
will  count  mightily  in  an  honorable,  a  righteous,  and  lasting 
settlement. 

The  first  of  these  is,  that  the  white  people,  deep  down  in 
their  hearts,  do  not  hate  the  colored  people.  As  paradoxical 
as  it  may  sound,  they  really  love  them.  They  would  not 
exchange  them  for  any  class  of  laborers  in  the  wide  world. 

The  second  is  this :  The  colored  people  do  not  hate  the 
whites ;  on  the  contrary,  they  cherish  genuine  friendship  and 
affection  for  them.  The  races  are  not  as  far  apart  as  it  may 
seem. 

The  excessive  bitterness,  rank  intolerance  and  contempt, 
and  the  extreme  and  violent  forms  of  prejudice  displayed 
toward  the  whole  colored  race  are  not  an  expression  of  the 
true  heart  of  the  whites.  They  are  rather  due  to  the  arti 
ficial  conditions  and  influences  purposely  created  by  the 
Bourbons,  the  pernicious  and  mischievous  leaders,  to 
strengthen  and  aggrandize  their  political  power  and  establish 
an  oligarchy.  The  entailments  of  slavery  made  it  possible 
for  them  to  inflame  the  whites  beyond  reason  and  drive  the 
mass  of  them  into  stark  madness  on  the  race  question. 
To  undo  their  work  :  the  repeal  of  all  prescriptive  laws  ;  the 
enactment  of  impartial  suffrage  and  acknowledgment  of  the 
right  of  its  rewards  to  office  based  on  good  citizenship  and 

344 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

merit ;  the  protection  of  life,  liberty  and  property ;  the  due 
punishment  of  all  criminals  according  to  law  and  not  color ; 
the  protection  of  the  laborer  and  the  elimination  of  all 
forms  of  peonage ;  the  overthrow  of  mob-rule  and  the  guar 
anty  of  equal  rights  before  the  law  for  all,  white  and  colored 
alike  —  these  should  become  the  self-imposed  task  of  the  best 
and  decent  elements  of  the  South.  Thus  could  they  bring 
peace  to  the  nation,  and  reconciliation  between  the  races ; 
thus  could  they  vindicate  the  honor  of  the  South  and  eman 
cipate  its  name  from  shame. 

From  the  womb  of  the  South  itself,  there  surely  will  come 
men  with  the  honesty,  courage  and  statesmanship  of  those 
beacon  lights  in  the  early  history  of  the  nation  —  men  like 
Henry  and  John  Laurens,  Pinckney  and  Gadsden  of  South 
Carolina ;  Jefferson,  George  Mason,  Madison,  and  Randolph 
of  Virginia ;  and  Luther  Martin  of  Maryland  —  who  cried 
out  against  the  wrong  of  oppression  and  servitude  at  the 
very  incipiency  of  the  nation's  birth.  What  they  denounced 
as  a  wrong  then  is  a  crime  in  the  light  of  to-day. 

The  advent  into  public  life  of  men  of  their  mental  calibre, 
political  honesty,  and  moral  courage  —  men  broad  in  states 
manship,  liberal-minded,  invincible  to  passion  and  prejudice, 
devoted  to  free  institutions  —  will  be  the  harbinger  of  better 
days  for  both  the  white  and  colored  people  of  the  Sunny 
South,  as  it  will  also  mean  the  overturn  and  banishment 
into  political  oblivion  of  the  reactionists,  the  negrophobists, 
the  "Jim  Crowites"  and  the  whole  brood  of  those  who  fatten 
on  public  office  or  public  patronage  by  preaching  hatred  and 
strife  between  the  races,  and  who  are  the  worst  enemies  the 
Southern  people  have  to  fear. 

The  nation  longs  for  peace,  but  peace  which  is  purchased 
at  the  sacrifice  of  the  dictates  of  justice  and  humanity  and 
the  vital  principles  of  Christianity  is  not  only  too  costly  in 
price  but  it  is  a  worthless  peace.  It  is  worthless  because  the 
conscience  of  the  American  people  will  not  accept  it.  It 

345 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

would  not  even  bridge  over  matters.  The  mere  announce- 
ment  of  peace  purchased  at  such  a  price  would  open  wide 
the  flood  gates  of  agitation  and  strife. 

The  dominant  leadership  of  the  South  is  endeavoring  to 
turn  back  the  hands  of  the  dial  of  time  and  engraft  on  the 
republic  the  leading  principles  of  the  Southern  Confederacy. 
Thus  they  would  achieve  by  indirect  action  what  failed  oi 
accomplishment  by  open  rebellion,  —  the  perpetual  subjuga 
tion  and  servitude  of  a  people. 

The  Honorable  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Vice-President  oi 
the  Confederacy,  made  this  historical  declaration  in  a  speech 
delivered  at  Savannah,  Georgia,  on  the  21st  of  March,  1861, 
less  than  a  month  before  "  Old  Glory  "  was  fired  on  at  Fort 
Sumter :  "  The  new  Constitution  has  put  at  rest  forever  all 
the  agitating  questions  relating  to  our  peculiar  institution — 
African  slavery  as  it  exists  among  us,  the  proper  status  of 
the  negro  in  our  form  of  civilization.  This  was  the  immedi 
ate  cause  of  the  rupture  and  present  revolution.  Jefferson, 
in  his  forecast,  had  anticipated  this,  as  the  '  rock  upon  which 
the  old  Union  would  split.1  He  was  right.  What  was  con 
jecture  with  him  is  now  a  realized  fact.  But  whether  he 
fully  comprehended  the  great  truth  upon  which  that  great 
rock  stood  and  stands  may  be  doubted. 

"The  prevailing  ideas  entertained  by  him  and  most  of  the 
leading  statesmen  at  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the  old 
Constitution,  were,  that  the  enslavement  of  the  African  was 
in  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature  ;  that  it  was  wrong  in 
principle,  socially,  morally,  and  politically.  It  was  an  evil 
they  knew  not  well  how  to  deal  with ;  but  the  general 
opinion  of  the  men  of  the  day  was  that,  somehow  or  other 
in  the  order  of  Providence,  the  institution  would  be  evanescent 
arid  pass  away.  This  idea,  though  not  incorporated  in  the 
Constitution,  was  the  prevailing  idea  at  the  time. 

"The  Constitution,  it  is  true,  secured  every  essential 
guarantee  to  the  institution  while  it  should  last ;  and  hence 

346 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

no  argument  can  be  justly  used  against  the  Constitutional 
guaranties  thus  secured,  because  of  the  common  sentiment  of 
the  day.  These  ideas,  however,  were  fundamentally  wrong. 
They  rested  upon  the  assumption  of  the  equality  of  races. 
This  was  an  error.  It  was  a  sandy  foundation,  and  the  idea 
of  a  government  built  upon  it :  —  when  the  '  storm  came  and 
the  wind  blew,'  it  fell.  Our  new  government  is  founded  upon 
exactly  the  opposite  ideas.  Its  foundations  are  laid,  its 
corner-stone  rests,  upon  the  truth  that  the  negro  is  not 
equal  to  the  white  man ;  that  slavery,  subordination  to  the 
superior  race,  is  his  natural  and  normal  condition. 

"  This,  our  new  government,  is  the  first,  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  based  upon  this  great  physical,  philosophical,  and 
moral  truth.  This  truth  has  been  slow  in  the  process  of  its 
development,  like  all  other  truths  in  the  various  departments 
of  science.  It  has  been  so  even  among  us.  Many  who  hear 
me,  perhaps,  can  recollect  well  that  this  truth  was  not  gener 
ally  admitted,  even  in  this  day." 

Mr.  Stephens  emphasizes  the  statement  that  the  Confeder 
ate  government  was  "  the  first  in  the  history  of  the  world  " 
to  make  human  slavery  its  foundation-stone.  It  will  probably 
be  the  last. 

He  lived  to  learn,  however,  that  no  government  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  world  ever  had  such  a  fitful,  transient,  and  mal 
odorous  existence.  It  died  a-borning,  in  the  very  throes  and 
agonies  of  its  own  travail,  and  without  the  pity  of  a  single 
civilized  nation.  The  Almighty  did  not  permit  it  to  darken 
the  earth  or  curse  humanity  with  its  presence  —  save  as  a 
scourge  and  punishment  to  the  nation,  and  to  cleanse  and 
purge  it  of  the  sin  and  crime  of  slavery. 

When  the  storm  came  and  the  wind  blew,  it  fell.  But  the 
government  based  on  the  immortal  and  divine  principles  of 
justice  and  equality  for  all  stood  the  severest  tests  and 
shocks  of  the  greatest  war  of  these  ages,  and  vindicated  the 
principles  held  by  Jefferson  arid  most  of  the  leading  states- 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

men  of  his  time  that  "  the  enslavement  of  the  African  was 
in  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature ;  that  it  was  wrong  in 
principle,  socially,  morally,  and  politically." 

It  may  also  be  noted  that  Mr.  Stephens  further  said  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy,  that  "its  foundations  are  laid,  its 
corner-stone  rests,  upon  the  great  truth  that  the  negro  is  not 
equal  to  the  white  man  ;  that  slavery,  subordination  to  the 
superior  race,  is  his  natural  and  normal  condition.1' 

The  principles  enunciated  by  Mr.  Stephens  are  monstrously 
inhuman.  The  people  of  the  United  States  are  superior  in 
many  things  to  the  people  of  the  Latin  republics  of  South 
America,  but  does  that  give  the  right  to  North  America  to 
conquer  or  deport  the  inhabitants  of  South  America  and  hold 
them  in  "  slavery,  subordination  to  the  superior  race,"  as 
their  "natural  and  normal  condition"? 

Some  nations  in  Europe  are  distinctly  superior  to  other 
nations.  But  what  nation,  arrogating  its  superiority  would 
dare  to  make  the  attempt  to  conquer  or  deport  the  inhabi 
tants  of  a  weaker  country  and  make  slaves  of  them  ? 

Mr.  Stephens,  however,  speaking  in  1861,  was  uttering  the 
exact  thoughts  and  even  words  that  are  proclaimed  by 
Southern  leaders  to-day,  on  the  floors  of  the  Congress,  in  the 
halls  of  legislation,  on  the  lecture  platform,  sometimes  in  the 
pulpit,  and  frequently  in  the  public  press.  Truly,  some 
neither  learn  nor  forget. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  far  wiser  than  Mr.  Stephens  ;  he  said : 
"  If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  then  nothing  is  wrong." 

And  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  "  if  outraging  and  op 
pressing  a  man  on  the  ground  of  color  is  not  wrong,  then 
nothing  is  wrong." 

The  truth  of  God,  the  sentiment  of  civilization,  and  the 
public  opinion  of  the  country  were  with  Mr.  Lincoln;  and 
because  of  this,  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  it  is 
written :  "  Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  ex 
cept  as  a  punishment  for  crime  whereof  the  party  shall  have 

348 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

been  duly  convicted,  shall  exist  within  the  United  States.11 
— "  All  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States 
and  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  thereof,  are  citizens  of  the 
United  States  and  of  the  state  wherein  they  reside/1  — 
"  No  state  shall  make  or  enforce  any  law  which  shall  abridge 
the  privileges  or  immunities  of  citizens  of  the  United  States." 
— "  Nor  shall  any  state  deprive  any  person  of  life,  liberty, 
or  property  without  due  process  of  law,  nor  deny  to  any 
person  within  its  jurisdiction  the  equal  protection  of  the 
laws."  —  "  The  right  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  to 
vote  shall  not  be  denied  or  abridged  by  the  United  States  or 
by  any  state,  on  account  of  race,  color,  or  previous  condition 
of  servitude." 

There  are  also  guaranties  for  the  right  to  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus ;  for  freedom  of  speech ;  for  a  free  press ; 
to  keep  and  bear  arms  ;  for  a  public  and  speedy  trial ;  to 
be  informed  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  the  accusation  ;  to 
be  confronted  with  the  witnesses ;  to  compulsory  process  for 
the  attendance  of  one's  own  witnesses  ;  to  have  counsel ;  to 
trial  by  jury  ;  immunity  from  bill  of  attainder  ;  from  ex 
post  facto  laws ;  from  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures  ; 
from  trial  for  a  capital  or  otherwise  infamous  crime 
unless  on  presentment  or  indictment  of  a  grand  jury  ; 
from  being  compelled  to  testify  against  one's  self;  from 
excessive  bail ;  from  excessive  fines ;  from  cruel  or  unusual 
punishment. 

Not  one  of  these  righteous,  humane  laws  is  honestly  ob 
served  in  the  South  with  regard  to  the  colored  man.  There 
is,  on  the  contrary,  a  general  repudiation  of  them ;  and  in 
many  essential  respects,  the  South  is  governed  by  the  galvan 
ized  corpse  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  rather  than  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  It  has  often  been  demon 
strated  that  the  life  of  a  colored  man  is  not  held  as  sacred  in 
the  South  as  the  life  of  a  robin  on  the  Boston  Common,  or 
a  swan  on  the  lakes  of  Lincoln  Park  in  Chicago. 

349 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

But  two  vital  considerations  may  apply  here :  one  divine  ; 
one  human. 

First,  "the  thunderbolts  of  God  are  still  hot,"  and  "right 
eousness  and  judgment  are  the  habitation  of  his  throne." 

Second,  the  American  people  have  shown  in  their  history 
that  when  they  make  up  their  minds  to  do  a  thing,  they  do 
it ;  when  they  determine  to  accomplish  a  result,  they  will  find 
a  way  or  make  it. 

The  particular  manner  of  the  co-operation  between  the 
divine  and  the  human  powers  may  not  be  thoroughly  under 
stood.  The  fact  of  the  co-operation,  however,  human  history 
abundantly  illustrates.  God's  hand  can  be  plainly  seen  in 
the  history  of  this  republic.  There  is  more  than  euphony  in 
these  words  of  Holy  Writ :  "  Righteousness  exalteth  a  nation  ; 
but  sin  is  a  reproach  to  any  people."  Sin  is  not  without  its 
wages. 

Thomas  Jefferson  wrote :  "  Indeed  I  tremble  for  my 
country  when  I  reflect  that  God  is  just ;  that  His  justice 
cannot  sleep  forever." 

The  hour  came;  God's  justice  did  awaken;  the  country 
was  convulsed  and  shocked  from  centre  to  circumference,  and 
the  best  blood  of  the  nation  paid  the  atonement.  The  lesson 
should  not  be  forgotten. 

The  humiliations,  outrages,  and  inhumanities  now  forced 
on  the  colored  man,  contrary  to  law,  human  and  divine,  are 
a  sin  and  a  reproach  to  the  nation.  Public  opinion  is  the 
remedial  agent ;  it  is  all-potent  because  the  truth  and  God 
are  behind  it. 

A  cloud  of  witnesses  speak  from  the  skies.  Some  of  these 
were  "  workmen  who  laid  the  keel,"  and  were  on  the  deck  at 
the  launching  of  the  Ship  of  State.  Others  were  at  quarters, 
on  guard,  and  at  the  wheel  through  all  the  trying  ordeals 
and  the  perilous  voyages  of  a  century  and  a  quarter.  The 
voices  of  the  most  eminent  men  and  women  now  living  are 
also  heard  with  no  uncertain  sound.  They  plead  for  right- 

350 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

eousness,  for  justice,  for  humanity ;  and  in  the  name  of 
God. 

Fundamentally,  a  nation  is  wise  in  so  far  as  it  is  righteous ; 
it  is  strong  and  powerful  in  so  far  as  it  is  just ;  it  is  safe  and 
invincible  in  so  far  as  it  has  the  favor  of  the  God  of  battles. 

From  the  depth  of  hearts  warmed  with  the  fire  of  liberty, 
and  with  love  for  their  country,  faith  in  humanity,  and 
abiding  confidence  in  the  Almighty  and  Righteous  Ruler 
of  the  universe  —  the  illustrious  fathers  and  the  glorious  sons 
of  the  republic  speak  out.  Will  the  South  give  ear  ?  Will 
the  nation  take  heed  ?  Hear  them  ! 

Thomas  Jefferson  says :  "  And  with  what  execration 
should  the  statesman  be  loaded,  who,  permitting  one  half  the 
citizens  thus  to  trample  on  the  rights  of  the  other,  transforms 
those  into  despots,  and  these  into  enemies ;  destroys  the 
morale  of  the  one  part,  and  the  amor  patriae  of  the 
other.  .  .  .  And  can  the  liberties  of  a  nation  be  thought 
secure  when  we  have  removed  their  only  firm  basis  —  a  con 
viction  in  the  minds  of  the  people  that  these  liberties  are  the 
gift  of  God,  —  that  they  are  not  to  be  violated  but  with  His 
wrath  ?  " 

Mr.  Bancroft,  writing  of  Mr.  Jefferson  says :  "  The  heart 
of  Jefferson  in  writing  the  Declaration,  and  of  Congress  in 
adopting  it,  beat  for  all  humanity ;  the  assertion  of  right 
was  made  for  all  mankind  and  all  coming  generations,  with 
out  any  exception  whatever ;  for  the  proposition  which 
admits  of  exceptions  can  never  be  self-evident." 

The  last  public  act  of  Benjamin  Franklin  was  the  signing 
and  presentation  of  a  memorial  to  Congress  as  President  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Abolition  Society,  in  which  these  words 
occur :  "  That  mankind  are  all  formed  by  the  same  Al 
mighty  Being,  alike  objects  of  His  care,  and  equally  designed 
for  the  enjoyment  of  happiness,  the  Christian  religion  teaches 
us  to  believe,  and  the  political  creed  of  Americans  fully  coin 
cides  with  the  position.  They  have  observed,  with  real 

351 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

satisfaction,  that  many  important  and  salutary  powers  are 
vested  in  you  for  '  promoting  the  welfare  and  securing  the 
blessings  of  liberty  to  the  people  of  the  United  States ' ;  and 
as  they  conceive  that  these  blessings  ought  rightfully  to 
be  administered  without  distinction  as  to  color,  to  all  de 
scriptions  of  people,  so  they  indulge  themselves  in  the  pleas 
ing  expectations  that  nothing  which  can  be  done  for  the 
relief  of  the  unhappy  objects  of  their  care  will  be  omitted 
or  delayed. 

"  From  the  persuasion  that  equal  liberty  was  originally  the 
position,  and  is  still  the  birthright,  of  all  men,  and  influ 
enced  by  the  strong  ties  of  humanity  and  the  principles  of 
their  institutions,  your  memorialists  conceive  themselves 
bound  ...  to  promote  a  general  enjoyment  of  the  bless 
ings  of  freedom." 

To  General  Lafayette,  who  denounced  slavery  as  "  a  crime 
blacker  than  any  African's  face,"  and  labored  for  its  aboli 
tion,  George  Washington  wrote :  "  Would  to  God  a  like 
spirit  might  diffuse  itself  generally  into  the  minds  of  the 
people  of  this  country." 

Washington  also  declared  that,  "  the  propitious  smiles  of 
Heaven  can  never  be  expected  on  a  nation  that  disregards 
the  eternal  rules  of  order  and  right." 

The  Honorable  Henry  Laurens  of  South  Carolina,  Presi 
dent  of  the  Continental  Congress,  minister  to  Holland,  and 
commissioner  with  Franklin  and  Jay  to  negotiate  peace  with 
Great  Britain,  left  on  record  these  emphatic  words  :  "  I  am 
not  one  of  those  who  arrogate  the  peculiar  care  of  Providence 
in  each  fortunate  event ;  nor  one  of  those  who  dare  trust 
in  Providence  for  defence  and  security  of  their  own  liberty, 
while  they  enslave  and  wish  to  continue  in  slavery  thousands 
who  are  as  well  entitled  to  freedom  as  themselves." 

The  Reverend  Isaac  Backus  of  Massachusetts,  says  :  "  The 
American  Revolution  was  built  upon  the  principle  that  all  men 
are  born  with  an  equal  right  to  liberty  and  property." 

352 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

The  voices  of  George  Mason  of  Virginia,  and  Livingston  of 
New  York  ;  Gadsden  of  South  Carolina,  and  the  Adamses  of 
Massachusetts ;  Alexander  Hamilton  of  New  York,  and 
John  Tyler  of  Virginia;  Roger  Sherman  of  Connecticut, 
and  Luther  Martin  of  Maryland ;  Joshua  Atherton  of  New 
Hampshire,  and  George  Tucker  of  Virginia ;  Rufus  King  of 
Massachusetts,  and  Edmund  Randolph  of  Virginia,  and  a 
host  of  others  —  these  all  express  the  sentiment  of  liberty 
and  humanity. 

Of  special  significance  are  the  declarations  of  the  Honor 
able  John  Jay,  the  first  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States,  and  thus  the  first  final  authority  in  in 
terpreting  the  Constitution  and  laws  under  it ;  he  says :  "  I 
believe  that  God  governs  the  world ;  and  I  believe  it  to  be  a 
maxim  in  His  as  in  our  Court,  that  those  who  ask  for  equity 
ought  to  do  it."  And  again  :  "Till  America  comes  into  this 
measure  her  prayers  to  Heaven  for  liberty  will  be  impious.11 
And  further  :  "  To  contend  for  our  own  liberty  and  to  deny 
that  blessing  to  others  involves  an  inconsistency  not  to  be 
excused.  .  .  . 

"  What  act  of  public  or  private  justice  and  philanthropy 
can  occasion  more  pleasing  emotions  in  the  breast  of  Chris 
tians,  or  be  more  agreeable  to  Him  who  shed  His  blood  for 
the  redemption  of  men,  than  such  as  tend  to  restore  the 
oppressed  to  their  natural  rights,  and  to  raise  unfortunate 
members  of  the  same  great  family  with  ourselves  from  the 
abject  situation  of  beasts  of  burden,  bought  and  sold  and 
worked  for  the  benefit  and  at  the  pleasure  of  persons  who 
were  not  created  more  free,  more  rational,  more  immortal, 
nor  with  more  extensive  rights  and  privileges,  than  they  were." 

Concerning  the  discordant  note  of  Chief  Justice  Taney, 
which  was  the  embodiment  of  the  slaveholders1  idea,  that  the 
negro  "  had  no  rights  which  the  white  man  was  bound  to  re 
spect,11  Mr.  George  Livermore,  in  his  Historical  Research,  says  : 
"It  shocked  the  moral  sentiment  of  our  own  community, 
23  353 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

and  excited  the  indignant  rebuke  of  some  of  the  most  eminent 
jurists  and  statesmen  of  Europe,  who  declared  the  sentiments 
to  be  'so  execrable  as  to  be  almost  incredible.'"  The 
Honorable  George  Bancroft  says :  "  He  has  not  only  denied 
the  rights  of  manhood,  the  liberties  of  mankind,  but  has  not 
left  a  foothold  for  the  liberty  of  the  white  man  to  rest  upon. 
.  .  .  No  nation  can  adopt  that  judgment  as  its  rule,  and  live  ; 
the  judgment  has  in  it  no  element  of  political  vitality." 

If  black  men  can  be  put  into  practical  slavery,  or  be  op 
pressed,  the  same  kind  of  power  can  force  white  men  into 
practical  slavery,  or  under  the  rod  of  oppression. 

'*  Fleecy  locks  and  dark  complexions, 
Do  not  alter  nature's  claim  ; 
Skins  may  differ,  but  affections 

Dwell  in  black  and  white  the  same." 

i 

This  idea  of  Justice  Taney,  however,  is  the  central  idea 
in  the  plan  of  campaign  of  Southern  leaders.  And  this  ac 
counts  for  the  "Jim  Crow"  laws  and  the  "Jim  Crowism" 
which  disgraces  the  South  and  is  the  shame  of  the  nation. 

A  press  despatch  recently  reports :  "  Thomas  Grades,  a  well- 
dressed  negro,  is  more  familiar  to-day  with  the  6  Jim  Crow ' 
laws  of  Virginia  than  he  was  when  he  left  New  York.  He 
was  dragged  from  a  train  at  Alexandria  and  taken  to  the 
station  house,  where  he  said  he  was  unfamiliar  with  the  law, 
and  on  payment  of  $10  collateral  for  his  appearance  was  re 
leased.  Grades  had  travelled  from  New  York  in  comfortable 
fashion,  but  at  the  Virginia  end  of  the  long  bridge  the  con 
ductor  requested  him  to  go  forward  to  the  little  pen  set  aside 
for  negroes.  He  refused,  and  at  Alexandria  the  entire  force 
was  employed  to  drag  him  from  the  car.  After  depositing 
the  $10  he  proceeded  on  his  journey  in  the  'Jim  Crow1 
pen." 

Is  this  civilization  ?  Is  it  Christianity  ?  Is  it  not  barbar 
ous  ?  Yet  every  colored  person  regardless  of  the  excellence 
of  his  inner  life,  or  outward  behavior,  whatever  his  talents, 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

possessions,  or  high  standing  in  the  republic,  is  subject  to 
these  barbarous  laws  of  the  South.  A  colored  woman  or 
schoolgirl  is  treated  the  same  way.  In  every  case  first-class 
fare  is  demanded  and  paid,  and  "  Jim  Crow  "  accommodations 
are  forced  on  them.  Sad,  indeed,  that  the  ineffable  mean 
ness  of  it  does  not  appeal  to  the  higher  sense  of  justice,  the 
spirit  of  humanity  or  the  Christian  ethics  of  the  white  people 
of  the  South. 

A  colored  man  travels  from  the  city  of  Washington, 
the  nation's  capital,  to  the  Pacific  coast.  The  time  required 
is  about  five  days,  and  the  distance  is  over  three  thousand 
miles.  He  may  be  a  high  official  of  the  government,  de 
spatched  on  public  business.  The  train  stops  at  various 
places  for  breakfast,  for  dinner,  for  luncheon,  for  supper. 
Every  person  on  board  of  the  train,  except  a  colored  person, 
can  freely  buy  refreshments  or  meals.  But  no  colored  person, 
not  even  the  Register  of  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States, 
who  is  a  colored  man,  can  cross  the  threshold  of  a  single 
dining-room,  or  even  slake  his  thirst  with  a  cup  of  coffee,  or 
munch  a  sandwich  at  a  lunch  counter.  And  yet  it  is  written 
in  the  Holy  Scriptures :  "And  whosoever  shall  give  to 
drink  unto  one  of  these  little  ones  a  cup  of  cold  water  only, 
in  the  name  of  a  disciple,  verily  I  say  unto  you  he  shall  not 
lose  his  reward.11  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of 
the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me.11 

The  colored  man.  government  official,  minister,  or  bishop  of 
a  great  denomination,  with  money  in  his  pockets,  cannot  buy 
food  and  drink  to  refresh  his  body.  Not  in  all  civili/ation 
outside  the  boundary  of  the  South  is  such  a  condition  possi 
ble,  nor  even  among  semi-civilized  people,  and  hardly  among 
the  savages.  The  negro  has  "  no  right  which  the  white  man 
[that  is,  the  Southern  white  man]  is  bound  to  respect." 

The  harsh  and  discordant  words  of  Chief  Justice  Taney 
may,  however,  serve  to  emphasize  the  strength  of  the  spirit 
of  liberty  in  the  American  heart.  That  spirit  has  survived 

355 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

every  assault  and  is  the  abiding  heritage  of  the  American 
people. 

But  the  sons  of  the  republic,  like  the  fathers,  also  speak 
for  liberty  and  humanity.  President  Garfield  said  :  "  And 
this  thing  we  will  remember  ;  we  will  remember  our  allies 
who  fought  with  us.  Soon  after  the  struggle  began,  we 
looked  behind  the  army  of  white  rebels,  and  saw  four  millions 
of  black  people  condemned  to  toil  as  slaves  for  our  enemies  ; 
and  we  found  that  the  hearts  of  these  four  millions  were 
God-inspired  with  the  spirit  of  liberty,  and  that  they  were 
our  friends.  We  have  seen  white  men  betray  the  flag,  but  in 
all  that  long,  dreary  war  we  never  saw  a  traitor  in  a  black 
skin.  Our  prisoners  escaping  from  the  starvation  of  prisons, 
fleeing  to  our  lines  by  the  light  of  the  North  Star,  never 
feared  to  enter  the  black  man's  cabin  and  ask  for  bread.  In 
all  that  period  of  suffering  and  danger  no  Union  soldier  was 
ever  betrayed  by  a  black  man  or  woman.  And  now  that  we 
have  made  them  free,  so  long  as  we  live  we  will  stand  by 
these  black  allies.  We  will  stand  by  them  until  the  sun  of 
liberty,  fixed  in  the  firmament  of  our  Constitution,  shall  shine 
with  equal  ray  upon  every  man,  black  or  white,  throughout 
the  Union." 

General  Sherman  said :  "  The  South  went  out  of  the 
Union  ;  it  came  back  with  five-fifths  voting  power  based  on 
the  negro  population.  And  it  is  not  fair  ;  it  is  not  just ;  it 
is  not  honorable  for  the  South  to  suppress  the  negro  vote." 

Mr.  Elaine  said :  "  No  human  right  on  this  continent  is 
more  completely  guaranteed  than  the  right  against  dis- 
franchisement  on  account  of  race,  color,  or  previous  condition 
of  servitude,  as  embodied  in  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States."  And  he  further  says  : 
"  Without  the  right  of  citizenship  his  (the  negro V)  freedom 
could  be  maintained  only  in  name,  and  without  the  elective 
franchise  his  citizenship  would  have  no  legitimate  and  no 
authoritative  protection." 

356 


PUBLIC    OPINION    OMNIPOTENT 

General  Grant  in  his  Memoirs,  said  :  "  Four  millions  of 
human  beings  held  as  chattels  have  been  liberated ;  the  ballot 
has  been  given  to  them  ;  the  free  schools  of  the  country  have 
been  opened  to  their  children.  The  nation  still  lives,  and 
the  people  are  just  as  free  to  avoid  social  intimacy  with  the 
blacks  as  ever  they  were,  or  as  they  are  with  white  people." 

President  Benjamin  Harrison  said :  "  As  long  as  free 
suffrage  shall  be  held  by  our  people  to  be  a  jewel  above 
price  ;  as  long  as  each  for  himself  shall  claim  its  free  exer 
cise  and  shall  generously  and  manfully  insist  upon  an  equally 
free  exercise  of  it  by  every  other  man,  our  government  will 
be  preserved  and  our  development  will  not  find  its  climax 
until  the  purpose  of  God  in  establishing  this  government 
shall  have  spread  throughout  the  world  —  government  of  the 
people,  for  the  people,  and  by  the  people." 

And  with  the  voices  of  these  sons  of  the  republic  are 
heard  the  voices  of  Logan,  John  Sherman,  Stanton,  Chase, 
Sheridan,  Longfellow,  Whittier,  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  McKin- 
ley,  and  a  mighty  host  of  others  —  a  glorious  company  speak 
ing  as  it  were  from  the  skies  to  the  American  people. 

The  vast  body  of  the  American  people  to-day  think  the 
same  thoughts  and  would  say  the  same  words.  And  their 

O  J 

voice  is  the  voice  of  God  speaking  through  the  human  heart. 

Public  opinion  is  omnipotent.  Let  it  speak  in  thunder 
tones !  Its  commanding  voice  will  be  heard,  respected,  and 
obeyed. 

It  will  prevail  because  it  carries  with  it  the  grandeur  of 
noble  conviction,  the  majesty  of  the  truth,  the  sovereignty  of 
the  right,  and  the  power  and  determination  of  execution. 

Kipling's  "  Recessional,"  penned  in  celebration  of  the  fif 
tieth  anniversary  of  the  reign  of  Victoria,  that  most  gracious 
queen  and  sovereign  of  a  world  empire,  in  essentials  perhaps 
the  most  illustrious  ruler  the  world  has  ever  seen,  embodies  at 
once  the  hopes,  doubts,  vanities,  and  fears;  the  struggles, 
triumphs,  and  prayers  of  a  people. 

357 


THE    AFTERMATH    OF    SLAVERY 

It  points  the  way  to  greatness  and  glory  because  it  points 
the  way  to  the  mind  of  God. 

Its  lesson  cannot  fail  to  impress  the  American  heart. 

**  God  of  our  fathers,  known  of  old, 

Lord  of  our  far  flung  battle  line, 
Beneath  whose  awful  Hand  we  hold 

Dominion  over  palm  and  pine  — 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget  —  lest  we  forget ! 

"  The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies; 

The  captains  and  the  kings  depart: 
Still  stands  Thine  ancient  sacrifice, 

An  humble  and  a  contrite  heart. 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget  —  lest  we  forget ! 

"  Far-called,  our  navies  melt  away; 

On  dune  and  headland  sinks  the  fire: 
Lo,  all  our  pomp  of  yesterday 

Is  one  with  Nineveh  and  Tyre  ! 
Judge  of  the  Nations,  spare  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget  —  lest  we  forget ! 

**  If,  drunk  with  sight  of  power,  we  loose 

Wild  tongues  that  have  not  Thee  in  awe, 
Such  boasting  as  the  Gentiles  use, 

Or  lesser  breeds  without  the  Law  — 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget  —  lest  we  forget ! 

"  For  heathen  heart  that  puts  her  trust 

In  reeking  tube  and  iron  shard, 
All  valiant  dust  that  builds  on  dust, 

And  guarding  calls  not  Thee  to  guard, 
For  frantic  boast  and  foolish  word  — 
Thy  mercy  on  Thy  people,  Lord  ! 

"Amen." 


358 


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THE  most  practical  and  useful  book  on  its  important 
subject  that  has  yet  appeared,  offering  much  needed 
help  to  every  business  man  who  feels  it  necessary  to 
advertise  in  the  most  effective  manner  and  with  the  greatest 
real  economy.  With  this  special  class  of  readers  in  mind, 
Professor  Scott  has  carefully  revised  the  chapters  which  at 
tracted  such  wide  and  favorable  comment  during  their  recent 
serial  publication  in  Makings  Magazine.  The  result  is  a  basic 
book,  which  in  simple  terms  and  plain  language  explains  the 
psychological  effect  of  advertisements,  and  opens  the  reader's 
mind  to  a  comprehension  of  the  general  principles  which 
underlie  the  whole  subject,  thereby  enabling  him  to  make  an 
intelligent  application  of  these  principles  to  the  requirements 
of  the  special  case  in  hand.  Copiously  illustrated  with  repro 
ductions  of  recent  advertisements,  criticised  in  the  light  of  the 
general  principles  discussed,  and  of  advertisements  made  up 
in  accordance  with  some  of  the  suggestions  of  the  volume. 

8vo,  half  leather,  gilt  top,  copiously  illustrated. 
Price,  $2.00  net.     By  post,  £2.15 

SMALL,    MAYNARD    &   COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS,    BOSTON 


WITH  WALT  WHITMAN 
IN  CAMDEN 

A  Diary  Record  of  Conversations  kept  by 
HORACE  TRAUBEL 

With  many  important  letters,  documents,  and  other  manu 
script.    Copiously  illustrated  with  portraits  and  facsimiles. 

The  publication  of  the  initial  volume  of  this  diary  is  one  of 
the  most  important  events  in  the  literary  history  of  America, 
and  one  which  should  attract  wide-spread  interest  among  all 
classes  of  readers.  For  nineteen  years  Mr.  Traubel  was  most 
intimately  associated  with  Walt  Whitman  in  Camden.  During 
the  greater  part  of  this  period  he  saw  the  poet  daily.  In  1887 
he  began  to  record,  consecutively  and  faithfully,  the  conversa 
tions  and  events  of  each  meeting,  whether  important  or  seem 
ingly  trivial ;  and  this  record  was  continued  until  the  poet's 
death  in  1892. 

In  preparing  the  diary  for  publication  Mr.  Traubel  has  made 
no  attempt  to  dress  up  Whitman  in  any  way.  Everything  is 
informally  presented,  just  as  it  occurred,  and  the  result  is  a 
picture  of  the  daily  life  and  thought  of  Whitman  during  his 
last  years,  when  his  judgments  and  his  personality  were  finally 
matured,  such  as  we  have  of  no  other  great  author,  possibly 
excepting  Dr.  Johnson.  Moreover,  the  work  contains  a  wealth 
of  letters  and  other  documents  by  Whitman  and  by  very  many 
of  the  greatest  of  his  contemporaries,  including  Emerson,  Al- 
cott,  Lowell,  Whittier,  Taylor,  Lanier,  Stedman,  Burroughs, 
Tennyson,  Symonds,  Gosse,  Carpenter,  Dowden,  etc. 

All  of  the  letters  (many  of  which  are  now  first  published), 
fall  naturally  into  place  in  the  diary,  having  been  discussed  by 
Whitman;  and  therefore  the  conversations  give  his  estimates 
and  opinions  of  contemporary  men  and  events. 

It  is  expected  that  the  work  in  its  entirety  will  extend  to 
several  volumes,  which  will  appear  consecutively,  as  Mr.  Traubel 
is  able  to  prepare  the  matter  for  the  printer.  Each  volume, 
however,  will  be  complete  in  itself,  covering  consecutive  con 
versations  for  a  specified  portion  of  the  time. 
8vo,  cloth,  copiously  illustrated,  .  Net,  $3.00;  by  post,  $3.20 

SMALL,       MAYNARD       &       COMPANY 
Publish  ers,     Boston 


STANDARD      EDITIONS     of      THE 
WRITINGS     OF     WALT     WHITMAN 


NEW  and  definitive  editions  issued  under  the  superin 
tendence    of    Whitman's   Literary    Executors,   and 
prepared  with  careful  attention  to  accuracy  and  to 
perfection  of  typography.    The  only  complete  and  authorized 
trade  editions  of  Whitman's  works,  and  the  only  such  editions 
which  in  contents  and  arrangement  conform  with  Whitman's 
wishes  and  his  final  instructions  to  his  Executors. 

LEAVES  OF  GRASS.     Including  Sands  at  Seventy,  Good 
Bye  My  Fancy,  Old  Age  Echoes  (posthumous  additions), 
and  A  Backward  Glance  o'er  Travelled  Roads. 
Library  Edition,  8vo,  gilt  top,  gold  decorative, 

two  portraits,  and  index  of  first  lines.    Price  .        $2.00 
The  same,  Popular  Edition,  I2mo,  cloth  binding, 

with  portrait i.oo 

The  same,  paper  covers     .....  .50 

COMPLETE  PROSE  WORKS. 

Library  Edition,  8vo,  gilt  top,  gold  decorative. 

Five  full-page  illustrations  and  a  facsimile       .         2.00 
Popular  Edition,  I2mo,  cloth,  with  portrait          .         1.25 
Each  of  these  volumes  is  uniform  with   the  corresponding 
edition  of  " Leaves  of  Grass" 

LETTERS 

Calamus.     Letters  to  Peter  Doyle     .         .         .       $1.25 
The  Wound  Dresser.     Hospital  Letters  in  War 
time         1.50 

SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  PROSE  AND 
POETRY  OF  WALT  WHITMAN.  Edited 
with  an  introduction!  and  a  brief  bibliography  by 
Oscar  Lovell  Triggs,  Ph.D.,  of  the  University 
of  Chicago.  I2mo,  cloth,  with  portrait  of  Walt 
Whitman 1.25 

SMALL,       MAYNARD      &       COMPANY 
Publishers,     Boston 


POSTHUMOUSLY      PUBLISHED 
WRITINGS    OF  WALT  WHITMAN 

AN    AMERICAN    PRIMER. 

Edited  with  a  foreword  by  HORACE  TRAUBEL. 
A  very  early  Whitman  manuscript,  originally  prepared  as 
notes  for  a  lecture,  with  an  alternative  title,   The  Primer 
of  Words  for  American  Young  Men  and  Women,  etc.    It 
was  only  recently  discovered  that  the  apparently  desultory 
notes  possess  a  definite  unity,  and  that  this  material  had 
never  been  included  in  Whitman's  works.     Limited  to  five 
hundred  copies,  with  facsimiles  of  the  original  manuscripts 
and  a  photogravure  portrait. 
8vo  ....         Net,  $2.00;  by  post,  $2.10 

WALT   WHITMAN'S   DIARY   IN    CANADA.      With 
extracts  from  other  of  his  journals. 

Edited  by  WILLIAM  SLOANE  KENNEDY. 
These  travel  notes  have  the  autobiographic  charm  of  all 
of  Whitman's  lighter  and  spontaneous  work,  and  show  in 
detail  an  experience  in  his  life  only  hinted  at  by  a  few 
paragraphs  in  his  collected  prose  works.     The  edition  is 
limited  to  Jive  hundred  copies,  and  contains  a  fine  photo 
gravure  portrait  from   a   little-known  photograph   taken 
during  the  Canadian  journey. 
8vo Net,  $2.50;  by  post,  $2.60 

A    NEW    BEACON    BIOGRAPHY 

WALT  WHITMAN. 

By  ISAAC  HULL  PLATT. 

This  is  the  first  biography  of  Whitman  (except  Dr. 
Bucke's  volume,  published  ten  years  before  the  poet's 
death)  which  has  yet  appeared,  and  is  also  notable  as  an 
entirely  adequate  statement,  in  brief  compass,  of  the  life 
and  work  of  this  eminent  American.  Pocket  size,  with 
chronology  of  dates,  a  bibliography,  and  photogravure 
portrait. 

Net,  750.;  by  post,  8oc. 

SMALL,      MAYNARD       &       COMPANY 
Publishers,     Boston 


THREE  NOTABLE  NEW  BOOKS 


WIT  AND   HUMOR  OF  WELL-KNOWN   QUOTA 
TIONS. 

Edited  by  MARSHALL  BROWN. 

A  unique  collection  arranged  in  the  nature  of  "  Themes 
with  Variations."  Grouped  with  each  well-known  quo 
tation  are  many  of  the  wise  or  witty  comments  which 
serve  to  illustrate  its  significance.  Beyond  its  interest 
to  the  general  reader,  it  should  have  an  especial  value  to 
after-dinner  speakers,  furnishing  a  wealth  of  bright  gems 
of  wit,  arranged  under  familiar  maxims,  which  furnish  a 
ready  topical  reference. 

1 2mo,  cloth,  decorative     .        Net,  $1.20;  by  post,  $1.30 


TERRITORIAL  ACQUISITIONS  OF  THE  UNITED 
STATES  (1787-1904).     An  Historical  Review. 

By  EDWARD  BICKNELL. 
Third  edition,  revised  and  enlarged. 

"  A  little  volume  crammed  with  exactly  the  information 
many  interested  in  the  political  development  of  the  country 
are  searching  through  libraries  for." —  Western  Christian 
Advocate. 

24mo,  cloth  .         .         .         Net,  500. ;  by  post,  550. 


CHANTS  COMMUNAL. 

By  HORACE  TRAUBEL. 

A  representative  collection  of  prose  pieces,  radical  but 
constnictive,  treating  of  the  economic  situation  of  the 
time  and  imbued  with  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  the 
communistic  ideal. 

I2mo,  paper  boards,  cloth  back. 

Net,$i.oo;  by  post,  $1.10 

SMALL,    MAYNARD     &     COMPANY 
Publishers;     Boston 


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